Islands in Amazonia

There are a number of habitats within the lowland Amazonian rainforest ecosystem that are functional islands. Those that are discussed are savannas, white sand campinas and caatingas, inselbergs and sandstone table mountains or tepuis. Each of these habitats is a series of isolated islands of vegetation and in some cases speciation has taken place between islands, especially the older tepuis, and in other cases there is still little differentiation due to more vagile diaspores and recent climatic changes. The effects of Pleistocene climatic changes that altered the balance between the distribution of savanna and rainforest is discussed.