Floristic, edaphic and structural characteristics of flooded and unflooded forests in the lower Rio Purús region of central Amazonia, Brazil

By T. Haugaasen, C. A. Peres. 2006

175 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Despite a natural history interest in the early 1900s, relatively little ecological research has been carried out in the Rio Purus basin of central Amazonia, Brazil. Here we describe a new study area in the region of Lago Uauacu with an emphasis on the climate, forest structure and composition, and soil characteristics between adjacent unflooded (terra firme) and seasonally inundated forests; situated within both the white-water (varzea) and black-water (igapo) drainage systems that dominate the landscape. The climate was found to be typical of that of the central Amazon. Varzea forest soils had high concentrations of nutrients, while terra firme and igapo soils were comparatively nutrient-poor. Terra firme forests were the most floristically diverse forest type, whereas varzea was intermediate, and igapo the most species-poor. The Lecythidaceae was the most important family in terra firme while the Euphorbiaceae was the most important in both varzea and igapo. There were significant differences between forest types in terms of number of saplings, canopy cover and understorey density. In contrasting our results with other published information, we conclude that the Lago Uauacu region consists of a typical central Amazonian forest macro-mosaic, but is a unique area with high conservation value due to the intimate juxtaposition of terra firme, varzea and igapo forests.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, History, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/8e4f0d29b824668d51cbd71cbfee7b4c73f4e210

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T. Haugaasen

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Citations in the corpus

Vertebrate responses to fruit production in Amazonian flooded and unflooded forests (2007, background): “A more detailed description of the study area can be found elsewhere ( Haugaasen and Peres 2006 ).”
Floristic composition, structure and natural regeneration in a moist semi-deciduous forest following anthropogenic disturbances and plant invasion. (2009, background): “Flooding as a limiting factor influences seedling and sapling species distribution, and establishment (Klinge et al., 1995; Wittmann and Junk, 2003), probably as a result of physiological stress from highly anoxic conditions, as well as physical flood disturbance (Haugaasen and Peres, 2006).”
Phyllostomid Bat Assemblage Structure in Amazonian Flooded and Unflooded Forests (2014, background): “Annual precipitation is approximately 2600 mm, with July– October being the driest months and February–June the wettest (Haugaasen & Peres 2006).”