dominate primary production
in nutrient- and sediment-rich river floodplains,
reaching some of the highest known rates of primary
productivity (Junk et al. 1989;Melack & Forsberg 2001).
Recent studies estimate total net primary productivity
along river floodplains to be about 300 Tg C yr −1 in a
1.77 million km2 quadrat of the basin (Melack et al.
2009), and basin-wide CO2 outgassing from rivers and
streams to exceed 1.2 Mg C ha−1, a transfer comparable
to that of terrestrial sequestration (Richey et al. 2009).
Freshwater ecosystem goods and services have supported
Amazonians for millennia. Early indigenous peoples
lived near freshwater ecosystems and relied largely
on the harvest of animals and forest products (Roosevelt
1999). Even today, many Amazonians live near rivers,
which they rely on for transport, everyday water use, and