The Forest Ecosystem of the Floodplains

Abstract

The Amazon floodplain forests are of special interest for botanical research due to the special physiognomy, the easy attainability of their margins and their exceptional environmental conditions. They were described in terms of their dominant and conspicuous tree species by Huber (1910), Ducke and Black (1953), Takeuchi (1962), and Hueck (1966). The hydrochemical differentiation of the Amazonian floodplains (Sioli 1954) into white-water (várzea) and black-water (igapó) inundation areas was confirmed at the botanical level by Prance (1979, 1989) and from a taxonomic point of view by Kubitzki (1989). Detailed forest inventories were carried out by Pires and Koury (1959), Keel and Prance (1979), Revilla (1981, 1991), Worbes (1983), and Campbell et al. (1986). Worbes et al. (1992) defined different forest communities of the várzea as successional stages.