Palaeoecology of the Neotropics: an overview of the state of affairs

Abstract

An overview is given of the most important data on the palaeoecology of the Neotropics, with special emphasis on the Quaternary. Strong changes of temperature and rainfall affected tropical South (and Middle) America during the last few million of years. These changes are known in more detail from the last glacial-interglacial cycle. Relatively humid and cooler climates occurred in the period between >50 000 and ca.25 000/30 000 years BP. A cold and very dry climate occurred in the period of ca.21 000-c.14 000 BP. Between 13 000 and 10 000 BP the climate became warmer and more humid, and from 10 000 BP to the present (the Holocene), the climate is more like the present, but there are still changes of temperature and especially of rainfall. There is no doubt that the rainforest disappeared and was replaced by savanna or semidesert in some areas during certain climatic intervals. This was relatively well established on several sites in the southern part of the Amazon basin, in Bolivia and Brazil. In the northern savanna area of South America, large areas were changed in sand deserts. -from Author