Reserve Area Is Ecologically Critical

摘要

In an article "Why we need Amazonian mega-reserves" (Natureza y Conservacao 3(1):112-119, 2005) Carlos A. Peres describes the benefits of extensive reserves. Part of bis descriptions follows: Comprehensive geographic representation of distinct biological assemblages will not be achieved in Amazonia without setting aside many sufficiently large mega-reserves (here defined as at least 1 Mha) that can safeguard a full complement of species and function as ecologically viable evolutionary units in the long term. In the absence of species distribution data, vegetation typology is probably our best available higher-order surrogate of plant and animal species turnover for deciding the geographic location of these reserves across the entire region.