When people think of the great rivers of the world, the Amazon River of South America immediately comes to mind. Filled with giant snakes and fish that like the taste of blood and flesh, the Amazon is like no other place in the world. Located near the equator, the Amazon River starts as a small stream in the Andes Mountains within a hundred miles of the Pacific Ocean. From here, it travels along the northern part of the continent. Rain and melting snow increase its size. So do more than a thousand tributaries. The Amazon River’s path takes it through the world’s largest rain forest, a place where many thousands of plants and animals make their home. For several months out of the year, high rains cause the Amazon River to leave its banks and wash into the Amazon basin for millions of square miles. The flooded forests create a unique ecosystem like no other place in the world. The Amazon River creates life, food, and medicines.

With a complex assemblage of largely intact ecosystems that support the earth's greatest diversity of life, the Amazon basin is a focal point of international scientific interest. And, as development and colonization schemes transform the landscape in increasing measure, scientists from around the world are directing attention to questions of regional and global significance. Some of these qustions are: What are the fluxes of greenhouse gases across the atmospheric interface of ecosystems? How mush carbon is stored in the biomass and soils of the basin? How are elements from the land transferred to the basin's surface waters? What is the sum of elements transferred from land to ocean, and what is its marine "fate"? This book of original chapters by experts in chemical and biological oceanography, tropical agronomy and biology, and the atmospheric sciences will address these and other important questions, with the aim of synthesizing the current knowledge of biochemical processes operating within and between the various ecosystems in the Amazon basin.