Native Fruit Tree Improvement in Amazonia: An Overview - Indigenous Fruit Trees in the Tropics: Domestication, Utilization and Commercialization - page 100

6

Native Fruit Tree Improvement
in Amazonia: An Overview

C.R. C LEMENT , 1 J.P. C ORNELIUS , 2 M.H. P INEDO -P ANDURO 3
AND K. Y UYAMA 1

1 Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA), Manaus, Amazonas,
Brazil ; 2 World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), CIP, Lima, Peru ;
3 Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonia Peruana, Iquitos, Peru

6.1 Introduction

6.1.1 Background

Amazonia contains the largest remaining area of humid tropical forest on the
planet and is undergoing rapid and dramatic human-driven environmental
change. The region is an extremely heterogeneous biome, extending from the
cool Andean foothills in the west to the Atlantic Ocean in the east with
seasonally dry savannah plateaus in both the north and the south. The Amazon
River Basin's landforms are composed of sediments from three sources: the
Guyana (north) and Brazilian (south) shields (the remaining highly weathered
surfaces of the palaeo-continent) and the Andes mountains, derived from recent
tectonic uplift. The rivers that drain the ancient shields are nutrient-poor, while
those that drain the Andes are nutrient-rich, which creates a mosaic of river
types: black water (organic acid-rich) rivers from the Guyana shield and
consolidated sedimentary plateaus within the basin, clear water (little organic
acid) rivers from the Brazilian shield and white water (sediment-rich) rivers from
the Andes. Generally low relief means that all rivers meander and the Amazon
River itself has wide flood plains that rival the Nile and Mekong Rivers in
potential primary productivity. Rainfall varies from 1200 mm along the south
and south-eastern limits to more than 3000 mm in the north-western sector,
with correspondingly variable dry seasons (6-8 months in the south-east to no
dry season in the north-west). This complex physical mosaic supports and has
helped create an equally complex biological mosaic as its mantle, making it one
of the planet's centres of mega-biodiversity, with an estimated 15-20,000
species of higher plants, including hundreds of species with edible fruit.
With increased worldwide awareness of the importance of the biosphere to
human society, the concept of sustainable development has become central to
all discussions about Amazonia. Agroforestry and fruit crops are always