MOUNTAIN SPECIES UNDER ATTACK FROM HUMAN ACTIVITIES

(PART 2 OF 2)

In the meanwhile the biodiversity that is in the mountainous zones guarantees the genetic adaptation and the change; this has individual importance because the modern nourishing cultures of high performance confront new pathogens and plagues. In some zones of mountains, the agricultural diversity and the cultural diversity go hand in hand. In the mountains of the Hindu Kush of the Himalayas, for example, the numerous ethnic groups of each region produce their own varieties of vegetables and spices. Also, 80 percent of the world population uses traditional medicines, but one of each eight species of plants, many originating from the mountain biomass, is in extinction of danger. All these data are a sample of the environmental, cultural and economic importance that the preservation and conservation of the mountain ecosystems has, and this especially deserves the international approval - although with the aim of becoming the springboard for future actions to be constituted, like a reminder of these resources. In such sense, the specialists are in doubt which one is declared "science" of mountains, fed by a variety of scientific disciplines that not very often communicate with each other. The integration of the many forms in which the mountain ecosystems are studied - geology, meteorology, hydrology, biology, anthropology and economy would help towards the creation of sustainable practices to protect the mountainous ecosystems and the biodiversity that they contain.




MOUNTAIN SPECIES UNDER ATTACK FROM HUMAN ACTIVITIES

(PART 1 OF 2)
Given the human activity in the lowlands, the mountains become reinsurance for the future. Of the 20 vegetal species that contribute to 80 percent of the food of the world, six come from the mountains. Mining, the climatic change and the lumber cutting, among others, affect those ecosystems. " Since these systems, the mountains, are very fragile, the majority of the studies is investigating the diverse factors that attack them, like the human activity, blighting, the water loss, the climatic change and many others " Maria Esther Bondanza of the Direction of Environmental Subjects of the Argentine Chancellery, said, What happens is that, hidden behind the rocky facade of mountainous slopes, is one more of the secrets coveted by the international corporations, eager to find an economic vein to the enormous but finite resources that nature provides: enormous reserves of biodiversity, in which many of the species that have disappeared in the lowlands, find refuge from the human activity.
Like praetorian guards of that wealth, the settlers of those zones are threatened by the slow but incessant advance of the economic actors, and the passivity of the governments and international organizations who neglected the ancestral knowledge of those peoples, and the importance of mountains in the conservation of great part of the biodiversity of the world. The isolation and the relative inaccessibility of mountains contributed to protect and to conserve a series of species that go from the deer, the eagles and lamas, to a rich variety of wild plants like the mustard, the pumpkin and currants. For example, in the mountain range of the Andes, the farmers know up to 200 different varieties of local potatoes, whereas in the Mexican mountain range of Manantlán they continue producing the unique well-known variety of the more primitive wild relative of the maize. While in the so denominated lowlands human activity turns fertile paradises of biodiversity into a sea of monocultures – exposed to plagues and other difficulties, and modified landscapes, the mountains become reinsurance for the future, more, if we consider that until this moment, only 1 percent of the tropical plants have been investigated for their medicinal application. The commerce of “rare” plants and animals from the mountains, increased by the poverty in which the settlers of those zones are themselves immersed, leads next to the commercial mining, the forest cutting, the tourism and the climatic change in rank of the devastating effects of the degradation of those ecosystems. America, with that immense natural wall that the mountain range of the Andes represents, is the continent that owns the greater mountainous biodiversity of the planet. From rainy and tropical forests, subalpine forests, mountainous deserts and cloudy forests, to mountain pastures, tundra, snow and banks of ice with its own characteristic flora and fauna, the mountain range merits the total attention of the people and governments of the nations it includes. As an important data it can be mentioned that of the 20 vegetal species that contribute to 80 percent of the food of the world, six come from the mountains, among them; the original potato of the Peruvian Andes, the maize of the mountain range of Mexico and the sorghum of the high plateaus of Ethiopia.

NEXT PART IN THIS SAME PLACE TOMORROW




BRAZILIAN GENERALS CHALLENGE INDIAN RESERVATIONS

Deep in the northernmost reaches of the Amazon jungle, a land conflict between rice farmers and a handful of Indian tribes has turned so violent that the country's Supreme Court warns it could escalate into civil war. The court is expected to decide if the government can keep evicting rice farmers from a 1.7 million hectare Indian reservation decreed by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2005. The evictions were stopped in April when rice farmers started burning bridges and blockading roads and justices said they feared a "veritable civil war." The court's decision could help determine the future of the Amazon, whose remaining jungles provide a critical cushion against global warming. It could also redefine Brazil's policy toward its Indians at a time of frequent confrontations, as the country spends billions of dollars opening roads, building dams and promoting agribusiness across the world's largest remaining tropical wilderness. Unlike in most other Latin American countries, where indigenous people are fighting for rights in mainstream society, most of Brazil's Indians continue to live in the jungle and maintain their languages and traditions.
These Indians have fought for decades to keep or regain their ancestral lands. Brazil's 1988 constitution declared that all Indian ancestral lands must be demarcated and turned over to tribes within five years. While that process has yet to be completed, today about 11 percent of Brazilian territory and nearly 22 percent of the Amazon is in Indian hands. But as logging, ranching and farming expand into the Amazon, there has been increasing conflict with the Indians and pressure on the government to limit the size of reservations. Earlier this summer, government anthropologists revealed photos of one of the world's last un -contacted tribes fleeing logging near the Peruvian border. In May, Indians protesting a proposed hydroelectric dam on the Xingu River in Para state machete-slashed a government official who came to speak to the group. Top military generals warn that too much land in Indian hands, especially along Brazil's borders, threatens national security and could lead to tribes unilaterally declaring themselves independent nations. They compare the situation to Kosovo, which broke away from Serbia in February.




HOW DID THE STATUE OF LIBERTY GET FROM NEW YORK TO RIO?

The Rio suburb known as Vila Kennedy would seem to have little in common with New York. The rough district, far from the city's glitzy beachfront, boasts no cinemas, no museums, no Central Park -- in fact, no park at all. But Vila Kennedy does have a Statue of Liberty.
Right there, on a stone pedestal overlooking the main highway, amid trash, traffic and sundry shops, stands a 9-foot-high replica of the iconic monument at the entrance to New York Harbor. And it does indeed look down on Brazil's tired, poor, huddled masses -- Vila Kennedy ranked 151st of 161 Rio communities on a United Nations development ranking. The story of how the statue came to stand in one of Rio's humblest communities rivals the epic tale of the 225-ton original -- given to the United States by France to commemorate 100 years of American independence (though it was a decade late, dedicated in 1886). According to Brazilian historian Milton Teixeira, Vila Kennedy's replica was commissioned in the early 1900s by Jose Maria da Silva Paranhos, an acclaimed Brazilian diplomat and historian. Why Paranhos, known as the Baron of Rio Branco, sought the statue remains unclear. The baron passed it on to his cousin, a wealthy coffee merchant, and for years it resided in a home in the picturesque Rio neighborhood of Urca, Teixeira said. When the house was demolished in 1962, the statue went to Carlos Lacerda, then governor of Guanabara state and an admirer of President Kennedy, whose vision, charisma and Roman Catholic faith clicked with many Latin Americans. At the time, authorities were clearing shantytowns known as favelas from downtown and moving residents to planned communities outside town. Some new developments, such as Vila Kennedy, were built with the help of U.S. funding from Kennedy's Alliance for Progress, an initiative meant to counter communist influence in the region. Someone in the government, with no apparent irony, decided that the ideal spot for the "Mother of Exiles" would be with the Rio inhabitants banished from their former homes. Authorities placed the statute in a central site known as Miami Plaza. Its soaring grace amid the drab surroundings, along with JFK's message of hope, stirred impoverished neighbors. Some even named their children after Kennedy and his family. "My mom always spoke about him and what he did for the poor," said Kenedy da Silva, 43, a government worker whose sister was christened Jacqueline. Although Rio's iron replica Lady Liberty is not believed to be the work of Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, the French sculptor who created the original, it was probably made outside Paris from Bartholdi's casts, Brazilian and U.S. experts said. Scores of small copies were made in cast iron and bronze by the Societe Antoine Durenne and the Thiebaut Freres foundries, said Edward L. Kallop Jr., a former curator at the Statue of Liberty in New York and a researcher on replica statues for Christie's auction house. Many went to small towns in France and were later melted down by Nazi occupiers, Kallop said in a telephone interview from his home in Maine. But, he added, about 20 replicas, including a few sent overseas, still stand as valuable historical pieces, many with inscriptions commemorating important local dates. The tablet in the left hand of Rio's Lady reads not "July 4th, 1776," but "15 de Novembro, 1889" -- the day Brazil declared itself a republic.
Today, her dignified figure towers over dilapidated stalls hawking used machine parts, wigs, coconut water, Bermuda shorts and string bikinis. Buses spewing thick exhaust disgorge passengers at the terminus in front of her. All around the stone plinth lie discarded pallets, plastic bottles and other detritus. In a poignant irony for a sculpture whose New York big sister is officially named "Liberty Enlightening the World," public lighting in the square is in chronic disrepair. Many fear vandalism or worse -- that audacious thieves could make off with her. "If it's not taken care of, it'll be shot at, vandalized, pulled down or even disappear," warned Mario del Rei, an activist and former councilman. Rio officials are examining a proposal to give Lady Liberty protected status, while improving lighting and stiffening penalties for anyone caught damaging this symbol of freedom in Vila Kennedy and beyond. Right now, protecting her is left largely to locals who keep an eye out for their symbolic guardian. Many appreciate her illustrious presence, even if they know little about her provenance. "Hmm, it's familiar," Aline Moreira, a student, replied when asked about the statue. "I know there's another one somewhere. New York, right?"




BRAZIL'S AMAZON FUND WILL NOT BE AFFECTED BY WORLD FINANCIAL CRISIS

Brazilian Environment Minister Carlos Minc said on Friday that the Amazon Fund, an initiative to gather funds for the preservation of the Amazon Rainforest area, will not be damaged by the world financial crisis. At the first meeting of the Amazon Fund's Guiding Committee, held in Brasilia, Minc said several companies, including Petrobras, Wal-Mart and AES, have expressed their interest to donate to the Fund. He assured that the names of the first donors will be announced soon. So far, only the Norwegian government has formally announced its intention to donate to the Fund. Norway will donate 1 billion U.S. dollars by 2015. Its first part of the donation will be 140 million U.S. dollars, which will be made in 2009. The Brazilian government expects to start using the Fund's money next year.
Minc also announced that the deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest area fell in September, lower than the average of the previous three months, which was 650 square km. In August, the deforested area in the Amazon Rainforest increased 133 percent, reaching 756.7 square km. Minc attributed the increase to the upcoming elections, saying that the politicians did not want to take unpopular measures against wood-related and transport companies for fear of losing votes.




MARRIOT SPONSORED CARBON PROJECT BRINGS HOPE TO REMOTE TRACT OF AMAZON

The Juma Reserve, in the heart of Brazil's vast Amazon forest, stands as an example of the perils weighing on the world's largest tropical woodland. Illegal loggers are tearing down the green canopy, and residents in this, one of the most remote zones on Earth, live in extreme poverty. But the situation is changing, thanks to a pioneer carbon project organized by the government of Amazonas state with collaboration from the US-based international hotel chain Marriott.
The reserve is the first place in Brazil to be certified by the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance, a partnership between corporations, non-governmental organizations and researchers that aims to establish initiatives promoting sustainable development while protecting the environment. Maria Edines Goncalves, who walked six hours through the jungle with her six children by her side to reach a community where the project was launched on Friday, is representative of the locals the project aims to help. In her pocket, she carried a letter signed by the 12 families in her tiny village asking for three necessities: a school; equipment to mill tapioca flour from the manioc, or cassava, shrub; and an electricity generator. "This is the first time someone from the government has come out here," Goncalves said. The Juma Reserve project's goal is to improve the lives of the 322 families living in the area, located 300 kilometres (200 miles) South of the City of Manaus and accessible only by boat.
The reserve was declared in 2006 in an effort to slow deforestation which took off after a small road was built to facilitate the movements of the loggers and clandestine gold prospectors. "Four years ago, there were six illegal wood mills operating here. The owners turned up with a lot of money and threatened to evict the inhabitants," said Father Ramiro, a Spanish priest who has lived in the area for 25 years. He added that he had received death threats for standing up for the locals. Ramiro said that turning half a million hectares into a reserve had helped a little to diminish destruction of the forest. Virgilio Viana, the director of the Durable Amazonas Foundation that overseas public and private finances used in State conservation efforts, emphasized the usefulness of the carbon project. "We are creating an economic instrument to ensure the preservation of the forest while recognizing the ecological services made by the people living in it," he said. The Marriott group is to make its contribution by asking clients in each of its 3,000 hotels around the world to donate a dollar to Juma's conservation and help the locals, who get by on fruit harvests and tapioca production.
The donations are a sort of "carbon tax" designed to offset the 32 kilograms of carbon dioxide produced in the hotels each night.
Brazil is the fourth-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. However, unlike in advanced economies, the source is not industry but rather from the fires set to clear Amazon woodland. The State of Amazonas is the best preserved in the country, keeping 98 percent of its original vegetation. But according to the Durable Amazonas Foundation, there is no reason for complacency: by 2050 the state will have lost a third of its forest if destruction continues at the current rate.




BIO TECHNOLOGY HELPING TO SAVE THE AMAZON

The enormous resources of flora and also of fauna that exist in the Amazonia and to a large extent of the Andean valleys, many of which are endemic, that is to say unique species in the world, can be in danger to disappear or to alter themselves genetically --in what is called genetic erosion - when introducing, without previous study and a suitable legal frame, external or transgenic genetic resources. The warning comes from Dr. Luis Campos Baca, president of the Institute of Investigations of the Peruvian Amazonía (IIAP), that indicated that in Peru, considered one of the mega diverse countries of the planet, exists thousands of species of flora and fauna, many of which have not yet been registered and that they have exceptional properties and virtues that do not need biotechnological processes modification of genes or trans genetics. He mentioned amongst those the camu camu, with 20 times more vitamin C than the orange; the aguaje or Mauritius palm, with 5 times more of betacarotene than the carrot; the sacha inchi, with large amounts of fatty acids of Omega 3 and Omega 6, among others fruits with high nutrients, vitamins, molecules, that make them unique in the world and that in their totality are native and wild species that grow all over the Amazonia. "Science and the biotechnology have the obligation to protect these resources that have unique properties and elements, and to preserve them for the future.
That is what biotechnological scientists are doing and those of the IIAP. It is not that there is opposition against the transgenic, but these, if being introduced in the country, must do so through a process that contemplates studies that they identify where, in which areas and how to use these products" , recommended Dr. Luis Campos Baca In a route by the laboratories located in Iquitos, as well as by diverse centers of culture, experimentation and works that the IIAP has in several sylvan localities, Dr. Luis Campos Baca showed the intense work that its centre realises not only in the protection and preservation of these species by means of advanced scientific programs and projects, but also in the objective to elevate the productivity and to be a future and safe source of income with programs of exports for numerous communities of the forest. MOLECULAR GENETICS Thus, in the laboratories of Biology and molecular genetics, the experts evaluate the biodiversity and come acquiring knowledge on the genetic product variability and species that next will be used for bio - commerce Carmen, Dr. Luis Campos Baca’s female leader of the laboratory of biotechnology of the IIAP, informed that she enters these appear studies of Amazonian fish like the Dorado, the arahuana, the doncella, the catfish, among others. She emphasizes the investigation with paiche, Amazonian species that admirably manages to grow more than 10 kilos per year. Also they analyze the genetic variability of natural populations of Amazonian fruit trees, among them camu camu, species that comes molecularly being characterized and in agreement with profiles in which the genetic identity of the most promissory plants is reconstructed. The same is realised with the aguaje and sacha inchi, those that will be used basic for future works as genetic improvement, conservation and maintained handling of these species.




THE CLIMATE CHANGE BROUGHT ABOUT THE APPEARANCE OF NEW SPECIES IN THE AMAZON.

American and Brazilian Scientists suggest the climatic change and the fluctuations of the marine level thousands of years ago promoted the appearance of new animal species in the region of the Amazon, in South America. In a report published by the magazine PLoS ONE, the scientists of the University of Texas and the State University of Sao Paulo admitted that this would explain the fact that the Amazon river basin is the one that lodges the greatest biological wealth of the planet. That conclusion was based on the analysis of three types of ants that produce their own food based on fungi, which determined how geography and the climate affected the development of new species. "Our study is unique because it was based on an insect. The previous ones concentrated in birds, mammals and other vertebrates. The insects represent the majority of the animal diversity in the Amazonas", said Scott Solomon, the main author of the study. The climate change of the last ice age that happened about 21,000 years ago forced those ants to construct isolated refuges in which they evolved until becoming different species." During the last ice age the Amazon region was colder and drier than now, although it was probably covered by forests", indicated Solomon. When comparing, by means of a computer science method, the climate situation where those species live now and how the climate was in the past, the scientists determined where each could live on during that freezing. Its calculation was reinforced by DNA sequences of each species in which they found that the changes left a genetic mark that is detectable in the ants that populate the region. On the other hand, before that ice age, the marine levels had special influence in the separation of many species and the evolution of others.
According to the scientists, many regions of South America covered now by forests were under the sea 10 and 15 million years ago. The tips of the highest regions, among them mountainous chains like the Mountain range of the Andes, were in fact islands in which the species evolved independently one of another one. The genetic evidence agrees with both possibilities and suggests as much them modifications caused by the climate change as the flooding of the Amazon river basin were responsible for the diversity of that type of ants and other species, according to the scientists.




HALF OF THE AMAZON WILL DISAPPEAR BY 2030

The reality is that I am something obsessed with the climatic change and towards where we are taking our planet. Now I read that due to the effects that the global warming is generating in the world for the year 2030 (we will be able to verify it) more than half of the Amazon, one the greatest forests than exist at present and that is mostly in Brazil, will disappear. The study realised by the people of World Wildlife Fund (WWF), called the Vicious Circle of the Amazon: Droughts and Fires, concludes that 55% of the forest will be badly damaged by the drought and the fire and agriculture in the next 22 years and another 4% will be damaged in the great rains that global heating will also produce. In addition for 2100 precipitations a 20% will fall and the temperatures will be increased by 2º Celsius. This combination will heighten the possibilities of fire and to the deforestation. In the negotiation to take place in Bali, the governments must accept a program of reduction of gas discharges that they do not respect in the present treaty of Kyoto? , asked - Beatriz Richards, leader of the investigation realised by the WWF.




SCIENTISTS EVALUATE POTENTIALITIES OF LAKE TITICACA

Local Scientists and of several countries today initiate here debates on the potentialities of the Titicaca Lake, whose waters bathe territories of Bolivia and Peru. In agreement with the organizing committee, the sessions of the forum will have like scene the Greater University of San Andres, in La Paz. The interchange will be inaugurated with a skilful conference called the secrets of the Lake Titicaca to the World, a natural wonder, an opportunity for the progress of Bolivia. Later an international seminary with a series of communications will begin that approach the possibilities of that reservoir of water for the development of this Andean nation. The meeting will also analyze the economic and tourist options that other attractive places of Bolivia offer, whose government has been trying for some months to operate in a better way this kindness of the nature. Located at more than three thousand 800 meters above the sea level, the Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world.




SOUTH AMERICAN CONTINENTAL ORGANISATIONS WORRY ABOUT IMPACT OF INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS ON THE ENVIRONMENT

In a letter sent to the President of the Inter-American Development Bank, Luis Alberto Moreno, organisations of Latin America and the United States expressed their opinion and the necessity to have a discussion and to debate on the initiative of Integration of the South American Regional Infrastructure (IIRSA by its Spanish acronym). The conflict point is generated by the vision of Evaluaciones Ambientales Estratégica (EAE by its Spanish acronym) proposed by the organism for the evaluation of the works. The organizations of the civil society see with preoccupation the concept that is granted to this tool since “its implementation suffers from inconsistencies”. “These environmental evaluations have been proposed like measures of mitigation of the social impacts and environmental of these megaprojects when in fact they would have to be fundamental tools that incorporate social and environmental aspects to the policies, plans and programs, defining previously the necessity or not of these projects of great magnitude”, they expressed in the letter. This initiative contemplates a finished infrastructure work plan that was decided in the Meeting of Presidents of South America realised in Brasilia, in the year 2000. Promoted by multilateral financial institutions of the region, amongst which is the Inter American Development Bank, it proposes economic integration based on a series of works of high impact for the ecosystems and means of subsistence of the Region, through an important transformation of the geography of the South American territories. Also, the organizations raise their preoccupation “about the IIRSA initiative, as a set of projects, since IIRSA does not count on the suitable instruments that guarantee the integrity of the environment and the consultation with the citizens”. In the letter, they propose an encounter to debate and to engage in a dialogue about “emblematic cases of IIRSA in which an Environmental assessment has been realised as instrument to improve the quality of the planning and execution of the work”. Finally, the organizations also emphasize their preoccupation “before the increasing perception of which IIRSA, and their proposers would be contributing quickly to the destruction of the Amazonia, the Pantanal, the Great Chaco and the River Basin of the Rio de la Plata”.




CLIMATE CHANGE IMPOSES MORE CONDITIONS TO POLICIES
Before it was considered that the climatic change was only another part of scientific evidence; but now it has been constituted into a political mandate. Consequently that challenge is raised in importance for all humanity to assume. But, that challenge will not be easy for Latin America, because a severe increase of the temperature is foretold: between 0.6 and 1.2 degrees centigrade for the year 2020 and between 1.8 and 4.5 additional ones towards the year 2080, plus a reduction of rains, particularly in the Southern part of our continent. The changes will seriously affect the continental environment and the water available for human consumption, electrical generation and agricultural production. There will be a major deterioration of forest and mountain ecosystems and more desertification. Consequently, the political leaders of this part of the world are forced to design strategies that, according to the experts, must be less consuming of natural capitals, less intensive in the use of water, energy and transport. Also needed are new designs in urban planning, means of transport and energy infrastructure, with an accent on the energy efficiency and the development of nonconventional renewable sources. Latin America, then, faces great threats because of the climate changes. But also it has great opportunities to reorient the public policies under fairness criteria and viability in the scopes of energy, agriculture, urban planning and management of the natural resources.




WHEN THE AMAZON RIVER FLOWED IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION FROM TODAY

Ask any South American dinosaur which way the Amazon River flows and she would have told you east-to-west, the opposite of today. That's the surprising conclusion of researchers studying ancient mineral grains buried in the Amazon Basin. The once westward roll of what is now the world's largest river was caused by a long-gone highland near what today is the river's mouth. That highland was created by the breaking away of South America from Africa and the creation of the Atlantic Ocean during the Cretaceous Period, 65 to 145 million years ago. Later, when the Andes rose up on the western side of South America, the river had no choice but to drain into the new ocean. "It just happened in a way that the current Amazon could take advantage of where an old river and ocean basin used to sit," said geologist Russell Mapes, a doctoral candidate at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Previous Brazilian and U.S. researchers have proposed smaller scale reversals and splits in the Amazon Basin, but nothing on the scale of the entire basin, said Mapes. The evidence for the Amazon's ancient change comes in the form of tiny crystals of a mineral called zircon, as well as telltale signs of the river flow direction captured in the structure of old river sediments. Zircons are stubbornly long-lived and tend to be recycled over and over without stopping their internal uranium-lead radioisotope clocks that started ticking when the minerals first formed. As a result, they are tiny windows for peaking at long-lost mountains and entire continents. The zircons in old sands studied by Mapes, his UNC faculty advisor Drew Coleman, and their Brazilian colleagues Afonso Nogueira and Angela Maria Leguizamon Vega, stand out because they do not appear to come from the Andes at all. In fact they date to about 1.3 to 2.1 billion years ago. So they had to have been formed in rocks that solidified in mountains that eroded away into the earliest Amazon.




MICROBIOLOGY NEW STUDY SUBJECT IN THE AMAZON BASIN

The Amazon Basin, home to largest rainforest in the world, is known for its astounding variety of plants and animals. But the rainforest may be also be home to an even more overwhelming variety of previously unknown bacteria and this diversity, just as with plants and animals, may be jeopardized by deforestation, says a report in an issue of the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

The report, by James Borneman and Eric Triplett at the Agronomy Department of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, describes a study in which soil samples were taken from a mature rainforest as well as an adjacent pastureland that was the result of deforestation. The soils were sampled, using polymerase chain reaction (PCR), to isolate bacterial DNA. The researchers identified 100 different DNA sequences, 98 from bacteria and two from another domain of microorganisms known as archea. They found no duplicate sequences and none of the sequences they did find had ever been previously reported. Eighteen percent could not be classified in any known bacterial kingdom. "The microbial diversity found in the mature forest and pasture soils from eastern Amazonia is immense," says Dr. Triplett. "Even with all the work that has been done on biodiversity in the Amazon to date, clearly much more work is needed to understand the enormous genetic complexity of this region. This is even more true of microbial life." The Amazon region contains the largest body of fresh water and the largest rain forest in the world. It is home to at least 15,000 documented animal species, 8,000 of which were new to biology when they were discovered. At least 40% of the world's freshwater fish and 25% of the world's bird species reside there. Over 5,000 tree species have been described there, 235 of which were found in a single hectare in central Amazonia. Very few studies, however, have been done to examine soil microbial populations in the Amazon region, say the researchers.

"It's such a rich biological resource that we decided to go and study it," says Triplett. "In the discovery of new organisms we can find previously unknown enzymes that can help further the progress of biotechnology. In addition, there are bacteria out there producing antibiotics that we have yet to discover." In addition to just examining and identifying microbial populations, the researchers also compared the populations of the two soil samples in order to illustrate the potential impact of deforestation on microbial diversity of the soil in the region. "Comparison of the DNA clones obtained from the mature forest soils and pasture soils suggests differences between the two sites," says Dr. Triplett. "A tremendous difference was found between the forest and the pasture soils." Deforestation of tropical forests alters many soil properties, say the researchers. Analysis of the two soil samples showed distinct differences in pH, levels of certain chemicals, density and porosity. These changes in the soil properties could account for the differences in microbial populations.




INSECT BIODIVERSITY IN AMAZON MAY BE RESULT OF ICE AGE CLIMATE CHANGE AND ANCIENT FLOODING, NOT RIVER BARRIERS
(ARTICLE 2 OF 2)

The "Pleistocene refugia hypothesis" posits that a major decrease in rainfall during the last ice age (about 21,000 years ago) affected where many Amazonian species, such as leafcutter ants, were able to survive. What was initially a single species would evolve into multiple, distinct species after being separated into isolated "refugia," each with its own set of selective environmental pressures.

The "marine incursion hypothesis" suggests that some 10-15 million years ago, a combination of tectonic events and elevated sea levels flooded much of the Amazon Basin in salty or brackish water. This would have caused higher elevation regions, like the slopes of the Andes Mountains, to become like islands, in which species were able to evolve independently from species on other "islands." The "riverine barrier hypothesis" suggests that tropical rivers serve as barriers to gene flow for terrestrial organisms. These rivers, which are wide and numerous in Amazonia, would promote divergence of populations restricted to either side.
According to the study, however, even the Amazon river-which at places is nearly two miles wide-has not kept winged leafcutter ant queens and males from flying across it. "It is interesting that Amazonian rivers acts as barriers to some birds, but these ants are apparently able to cross them," says Solomon. The results, says Mueller, don't resolve all the mysteries of tropical biodiversity. It's possible, for instance, that both ancient flooding of the Amazon basin as well as more recent, ice age climate change contributed to speciation, and even both factors don't explain why tropical insect diversity exceeds temperate insect diversity by so much. "The results don't solve the great puzzle of why tropical insect diversity exceeds temperate insect diversity by several orders of magnitude," says Mueller, "but they are significant, and they point to some key processes that other researchers will now test also on other organisms." The research was conducted at The University of Texas at Austin and the State University of São Paulo in Brazil. Solomon is a National Science Foundation International Research Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution.
THE END