History of Ecological Sciences, Part 41: Victorian Naturalists in Amazonia—Wallace, Bates, Spruce

Amazonia contains the world’s greatest river system, most diverse ecosystem, and greatest diversity of plants and animals (Lord and Bell 2002, Rojas and Prieto 2009). Amazonia covers 3.7 million km2 (1.4 million square miles), extending from the Andes to the Atlantic, with a homogeneous, moist, warm climate that supports a tropical rain forest bordered to the north and south by drier grasslands. The Amazon River contains almost a fifth of the freshwater flowing into the oceans, five times more than the Congo and 12 times more than the Mississippi. Three Victorian naturalists provided the first detailed surveys of its biotic resources and ecosystem. They were preceded in Brazil, however, by Munich zoologist Johann von Spix (1781–1826) and botanist Karl von Martius (1794–1868), who arrived in Rio de Janeiro in 1817 and traveled north by 1820 to the Amazon, before returning home to publish a volume of memoirs (1823) and enrich the Munich museum and botanic garden with their specimens (Sanders 1974, 1975, Juniper 2002:13–23). After Spix’s death, Maartius published two more volumes of memoirs of their expedition (1828–1831).