Dynamic Rivers Contributed to Amazon’s Rich Bird Diversity
Published:12 Apr.2022    Source:American Museum of Natural History
The lowland rainforests of the Amazon River basin harbor more diversity than any other terrestrial ecosystem on the planet. It is also a globally important biome containing about 18 percent of all trees on Earth and carrying more fresh water than the next seven largest river basins combined. Researchers have long wondered and hotly debate how the Amazon's rich biodiversity arose and accumulated.
 

"Early evolutionary biologists like Alfred Russel Wallace noticed that many species of primates and birds differ across opposite riverbanks in the Amazon, and ornithologists now know that rivers are associated -- in one way or another -- with the origin of many avian species," said the study's lead author Lukas Musher, a postdoctoral researcher at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University and a recent comparative biology Ph.D. graduate of the American Museum of Natural History's Richard Gilder Graduate School. "Moreover, accumulating geological evidence has suggested that these rivers are highly dynamic, moving around the South American landscape over relatively short time periods, on the order of thousands or tens of thousands of years."