DOI: 10.1126/science.1194585, 927 (2010);330 Science, et al.C. HoornEvolution, and BiodiversityAmazonia Through Time: Andean Uplift, Climate Change, Landscape This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. clicking here.colleagues, clients, or customers by , you can order high-quality copies for yourIf you wish to distribute this article to others here.following the guidelines can be obtained byPermission to republish or repurpose articles or portions of articles ): September 16, 2011 www.sciencemag.org (this infomation is current as ofThe following resources related to this article are available online at http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6006/927.full.htmlversion of this article at: including high-resolution figures, can be found in the onlineUpdated information and services, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2010/11/10/330.6006.927.DC1.html can be found at: Supporting Online Material http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6006/927.full.html#relatedfound at:can berelated to this article A list of selected additional articles on the Science Web sites http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6006/927.full.html#ref-list-1, 17 of which can be accessed free:cites 57 articlesThis article http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6006/927.full.html#related-urls6 articles hosted by HighWire Press; see:cited by This article has been http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/collection/evolutionEvolutionsubject collections:This article appears in the following registered trademark of AAAS. is aScience2010 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science; all rights reserved. The title CopyrightAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science, 1200 New York Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20005. (print ISSN 0036-8075; online ISSN 1095-9203) is published weekly, except the last week in December, by theScience on September 16, 2011www.sciencemag.orgDownloaded fromAmazonia Through Time: AndeanUplift, Climate Change, LandscapeEvolution, and BiodiversityC. Hoorn,1* F. P. Wesselingh,2H. ter Steege,3M. A. Bermudez,4A. Mora,5J. Sevink,1I. Sanmartín,6A. Sanchez-Meseguer,6C. L. Anderson,6J. P. Figueiredo,7C. Jaramillo,8D. Riff,9F. R. Negri,10H. Hooghiemstra,1J. Lundberg,11T. Stadler,12T. Särkinen,13A. Antonelli14*†The Amazonian rainforest is arguably the most species-rich terrestrial ecosystem in the world, yetthe timing of the origin and evolutionary causes of this diversity are a matter of debate. We reviewthe geologic and phylogenetic evidence from Amazonia and compare it with uplift records fromthe Andes. This uplift and its effect on regional climate fundamentally changed the Amazonianlandscape by reconfiguring drainage patterns and creating a vast influx of sediments into thebasin. On this “Andean” substrate, a region-wide edaphic mosaic developed that became extremelyrich in species, particularly in Western Amazonia. We show that Andean uplift was crucial for theevolution of Amazonian landscapes and ecosystems, and that current biodiversity patterns arerooted deep in the pre-Quaternary.Pleistocene forest remnants (“refug ia”)werelong held to be responsible for Amazoniandiversity (1). In the 1990s the centers ofdiversity, postulated as prime evidence for therefuge theory , were shown to be sampling arti-facts (2). Over time, the theory was abandonedand an older origin for the Amazonian diversitywas proposed (3). Perhaps more important, re-gional diversification events, as inferred from thefossil record and molecular phylogenetic studies,mostly predate the Pleistocene (4, 5). Althoughthe mechanisms of diversification remain elusiveand speciation may occur with barriers (6)andeven without clear barriers (7), it is now generallyacknowledged that the development of Amazo-nian biota has been a long and complex process(3, 8).At the global scale, the Neogene (the 20 millionyears that preceded the Pleistocene) was a defin-ing period during which much of the presentgeography and biotic composition was formed(9). The process of species diversification isstrongly linked to tectonism and climate, both inthe terrestrial (10, 11) and marine realms (12).The dynamic geologic history of South Americashould thus be very relevant for understandingthe origins of the present diversity .Recent advances in the fields of Andean andAmazonian geology and phylogenetics have pro-ceeded in parallel. The geosciences communityprovided new data on mountain building in theAndes and on the timing and types of biotic andpaleoenvironmental changes in lowland Amazo-nia. Climatologists modeled the atmospheric pat-terns that resulted from the formation of the Andeanorographic barrier . At the same time, new molec-ular analyses based on DNA sequence variationof living organisms shed further light on the se-quence and approximate timing of diversifications.These new data made it clear that the Cenozoicuplift history of the Andes and its effect on re-gional climate (13, 14) has had a large impact onthe landscape evolution in entire northern SouthAmerica, including Amazonia (15, 16). Althoughlinks between the Andean orogeny and neotrop-ical diversification have long been suggested (17),only recently have researchers started to exploredated phylogenetic trees [e.g., (18, 19)], in com-bination with more realistic, complex geologicalscenarios (8, 20).Here, we review the timing and extent of moun-tain building in northern South America and com-pare it with geologic evidence from sedimentarybasins in Amazonia. We explore the origins ofAmazonian ecosystems and biodiversity with theuse of a combination of geologic (including pa-leontologic) and ecologic data sets as well asdated molecular phylogenies. Through schematicrepresentation of these findings, we summarizethe geologic evolution of this area, outline the agestructure of its biodiversity , and provide a guide-line for future integrated geologic, biogeograph-ic, and conservation studies.Amazonia Prior to Andean Influence: An Ancient,River-Dominated LandscapeThe area known today as Amazonia was oncepart of a much larger “pan-Amazonian” region,which, before the late Miocene [until 10 millionyears ago (Ma)], included the area of the presentAmazon, Orinoco, and Magdalena drainage basins(Fig. 1A). At times this region extended to thesouth, into the northern Paraná region (21). Wecall this vast area pan-Amazonia because we knowfrom the fossil record that a diverse fauna existed,elements of which are now restricted to Amazonia.Most of Amazonia’s geologic
View Full Document
Unlocking...