Yasuni ecosystem and biodiversity

Some studies have recognised that Yasuní is located in one of the world’s last high-biodiversity wilderness areas (Bass 2010; Finer 2010; Bilsborrow 2004). Yasuní is within the ‘‘Core Amazon,’’ a particularly wet region with high annual rainfall and no severe dry season with warm temperatures averaging 24–27°C for all months (Bass et al. 2010).

The wet section of the Amazon Basin is expected to maintain wet rainforest conditions as climate change-induced drought intensifies in the eastern Amazon over the coming decades (Finer et al. 2008).

Bass et al. (2010) show many results about species richness, endemism, and threatened species across various taxonomic groups in Yasuní, among other analyses. Related to the species richness in Yasuní, their distribution maps of amphibian, bird, mammal, and vascular plant species across South America show that Yasuní occupies a unique biogeographic position where species richness of all four taxonomic groups reach diversity maxima. For amphibians, birds, and mammals, these are not just continental, but global, maxima of species richness at local scales (<=100 km2).

Yasuní also protects a large tract of the Napo Moist Forests terrestrial ecoregion and the Upper Amazon Piedmont freshwater ecoregion, which contains numerous headwater rivers of the Amazon (Bass et al. 2010).

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