Comment on "Persistent effects of pre-Columbian plant domestication on Amazonian forest composition"

Crystal H McMichael; Kenneth J Feeley; Christopher W Dick; Dolores R Piperno; Mark B Bush

doi:10.1126/science.aan8347

Comment on "Persistent effects of pre-Columbian plant domestication on Amazonian forest composition"

Science. 2017 Oct 20;358(6361):eaan8347. doi: 10.1126/science.aan8347.

Authors

Crystal H McMichael¹, Kenneth J Feeley², Christopher W Dick^{3

4}, Dolores R Piperno^{4

5}, Mark B Bush⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Ecosystem and Landscape Dynamics, Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands. c.n.h.mcmichael@uva.nl.
² Department of Biology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA.
³ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
⁴ Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Balboa, Panama.
⁵ Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC, USA.
⁶ Department of Biological Sciences, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL, USA.

PMID: 29051349
DOI: 10.1126/science.aan8347

Abstract

Levis et al (Research Articles, 3 March 2017, p. 925) concluded that pre-Columbian tree domestication has shaped present-day Amazonian forest composition. The study, however, downplays five centuries of human influence following European arrival to the Americas. We show that the effects of post-Columbian activities in Amazonia are likely to have played a larger role than pre-Columbian ones in shaping the observed floristic patterns.

Publication types

Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Comment

MeSH terms

Americas
Domestication*
Forests*
Humans
Plants
Trees