A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Relict high-Andean ecosystems challenge our concepts of naturalness and human impact
Authors: Sylvester Stephen P, Heitkamp Felix, Sylvester Mitsy DPV, Jungkunst Hermann F, Sipman Harrie JM, Toivonen Johanna M, Inca Carlos A Gonzales, Ospina Juan C, Kessler Michael
Publisher: NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP
Publication year: 2017
Journal: Scientific Reports
Journal name in source: SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
Journal acronym: SCI REP-UK
Article number: ARTN 3334
Volume: 7
Number of pages: 13
ISSN: 2045-2322
eISSN: 2045-2322
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-03500-7
Web address : http://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-03500-7
Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/23071754
What would current ecosystems be like without the impact of mankind? This question, which is critical for ecosystem management, has long remained unanswered due to a lack of present-day data from truly undisturbed ecosystems. Using mountaineering techniques, we accessed pristine relict ecosystems in the Peruvian Andes to provide this baseline data and compared it with the surrounding accessible and disturbed landscape. We show that natural ecosystems and human impact in the high Andes are radically different from preconceived ideas. Vegetation of these 'lost worlds' was dominated by plant species previously unknown to science that have become extinct in nearby human-affected ecosystems. Furthermore, natural vegetation had greater plant biomass with potentially as much as ten times more forest, but lower plant diversity. Contrary to our expectations, soils showed relatively little degradation when compared within a vegetation type, but differed mainly between forest and grassland ecosystems. At the landscape level, a presumed large-scale forest reduction resulted in a nowadays more acidic soilscape with higher carbon storage, partly ameliorating carbon loss through deforestation. Human impact in the high Andes, thus, had mixed effects on biodiversity, while soils and carbon stocks would have been mainly indirectly affected through a suggested large-scale vegetation change.
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