Amazon Varzea Forest

A seasonal floodplain forest of about 180,000 square kilometers across the Amazon basin, inundated each year by nutrient-rich whitewater rivers including the Amazon itself and the Solimoes, Purus and Madeira. The ecoregion spans eight countries, with 68 percent of its area in Brazil. Legume and spurge family trees dominate the canopy, and Amazonian manatees, river dolphins, black caimans and jaguars all use the varzea, with fish, birds and reptiles relying on it as a breeding ground; fish in particular benefit from lower predator densities during the flood season. Deforestation for logging and agriculture, acai palm extraction, cattle ranching and hunting of the seed-dispersing primates that regenerate the forest are eroding the ecoregion; mixed-species varzea forest declined by about 25 percent between 1976 and 1991.