Relict high-Andean ecosystems challenge our concepts of naturalness and human impact.

ABSTRACT: 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 for

SUBMITTER: Sylvester SP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5469861 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature