Publication

Revisiting Camu-camu ( Myrciaria dubia ): Twenty-seven Years of Fruit Collection and Flooding at an Oxbow Lake in Peruvian Amazonia Camu-camu (Myrciaria dubia HBK McVaugh; Myrtaceae) is an important riparian species in the floodplain forests of Peruvian Amazonia, and its fruits have been harvested commercially for over 30 years. We examined the population impacts of intensive fruit collection on this species by remeasuring a 1,000 m(2) inventory transect that was established in 1984 in a dense stand of M. dubia along an oxbow lake. We found that regeneration rates had declined notably since the original survey, and that the number of M. dubia individuals had dropped from 693 to 161 genets. While this dramatic shift in population structure would appear to be caused by excessive fruit collection, the same decline in regeneration was noted for Eugenia inundata DC, an associated species of similar growth form and phenology that is not harvested. The life cycles of both species are closely tied to the rise and fall of the river. In addition to annual fruit collection, we suggest that the extreme hydrological events that have occurred in the Amazon Basin over the last few decades, as well as the successional development of the ox-box lake study site that has been slowly filling up with sediment, also play a role in the observed reduction in M. dubia numbers.