HOOKaWORM · Hook a Worm to Catch a Man: Tracking Historical and Recent Human Settlement, Land use and Migration in Neotropical Rainforests using Ecosystem Engineers

Hook a Worm to Catch a Man: Tracking Historical and Recent Human Settlement, Land use and Migration in Neotropical Rainforests using Ecosystem Engineers

During the Holocene, humans have greatly altered global patterns of biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics. Numerous examples exist of ancient land-use systems in human-transformed landscapes, supporting vast numbers of people, and greatly modifying the forest cover. One of these are the Amazonian Dark Earths (ADEs): highly nutrient-enriched soils with an outstanding capacity for carbon sequestering, agricultural production and resilience to desertification. Surprisingly, the contribution of soil biota has been severely ignored in these soils, and little is known of their biodiversity. Therefore, the applicant’s intention was to contribute to the knowledge of soil animal biodiversity and its relationship with soil fertility and land use changes in a mega-diverse biome (Amazonia). Promoting the interdisciplinary connection between archaeological data, soil ecology and genomics, the applicant investigates both the relationship of ADEs to the associated extant biodiversity, revealing details of past and current anthropic impact on the natural surroundings, as well as new clues regarding human-settlement dynamics over a large part of Brazil. This is achieved by integrating the state-of-the-art methods in invertebrate taxonomy/morphology, molecular genetics, and computational analyses with incorporation of pre-existent and new ecological, anthropological/archaeological and environmental metadata. This is being pursued through a three-tier approach with three distinct but complementary objectives, compartmentalized into individual workpackages. Therefore, the main objectives of the project are: 1st objective: Assessment of the extent of the relation between soil biodiversity and human settlements associated with Amazonian Dark Earths (ADEs) 2nd Objective: Tracking recent and historical (i.e. pre-Columbian) land use changes using soil biodiversity assemblages 3rd Objective: Tracking Amerindian migration impacts on genetic diversity from western Amazonia to Southern Brazil using a peregrine earthworm species

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз