A remote corner of the Brazilian Amazon, known as Tsiino Hiiwiida, is so botanically unexplored that scientists are still discovering new species of plants and fungi there on a regular basis. This matters because the Upper Rio Negro region contains a mosaic of white-sand forests, black-water rivers, and montane habitats that have driven evolution for millions of years. Yet it has received far less botanical attention than other South American biodiversity hotspots. The project brings together Brazilian and UK researchers, indigenous students, and local parataxonomists to conduct the first comprehensive floristic survey of the area. They will combine traditional fieldwork with metagenomic DNA analysis to identify new and cryptic species, and produce the first verified catalogue of the region’s plants and fungi. If successful, the research will fill major gaps in taxonomic, biogeographic, and evolutionary knowledge of a globally significant biodiversity centre. This is primarily fundamental science—understanding what lives there and how it evolved. But a verified species catalogue also provides the baseline data needed for future conservation planning, biomonitoring, and sustainable use of Amazonian resources by indigenous communities.
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The Cabeça do Cachorro region (or Tsiino Hiiwiida, in the Baniwa language) of the Upper Rio Negro in Brazilian Amazonia is a last global frontier of untapped biodiversity knowledge. The spatially complex arrangement of habitats in the region, including archipelagos of white-sand forests within a matrix of black-water, upland, and montane forests, is a major ‘theatre’ for evolution over millions of years of geological history. This region remains an epicentre for the discovery of new and endemic species, however it is disproportionately less explored botanically than other diversity hotspots of northern South America. An integrated effort is imperative to more comprehensively document and understand its biodiversity at multiple scales. In this proposal, we have built a broad collaborative network among professors, researchers, indigenous and non-indigenous students, as well as parataxonomists to aggregate scientific knowledge, accelerate the discovery of plants and fungi, and fill gaps in taxonomic, biogeographic, and evolutionary knowledge of this biologically and culturally unique region. We propose to conduct floristic surveys which combine traditional fieldwork and studies in taxonomy, evolution, molecular systematics, and biomonitoring, with cutting edge metagenomic technology and interacting with and empowering local indigenous communities to offer a novel glimpse into the diversity of this extraordinarily rich region. Research expeditions focusing on plants and fungi will lay the groundwork for enriching scientific collections, revealing new, cryptic, or phylogenetically enigmatic species and lineages, and producing the first taxonomically verified catalog of the flora and fungi of the Cabeça do Cachorro. Our proposal also aims to foster collaborations among educational and research Amazonian institutions with other Brazilian states and the United Kingdom in order to continue expanding horizons for discovery in a global epicentre of biodiversity.
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