The Once and Future Amazon Forest? Climate and Landscape Change May Drive the Expansion of Nutrient-Poor Amazonian Ecosystems

Abstract

Poor-soil Amazonian ecosystems, such as white-sand ecosystems (WSE, sensu lato), were widespread in the past, reflecting a diverse origin, and have a history of repeated expansion and contraction in response to climate fluctuations and landscape reconfiguration. Although modern climate change outpaces natural processes, we hypothesize that soil nutrient degradation will trigger a cascade of ecosystem reconfigurations, favoring the eventual expansion of WSE-like habitats long into the future. This expansion may be a nuanced aspect of the broader process of Amazon degradation. Long-term monitoring and field experiments remain necessary to test these predictions regarding the “once and future” Amazon Forest.