ATBC 2008 - Plenary Abstracts 12 June

Plenary Speakers - Abstract - Thursday 12 June

Doyle McKey (Biologie des Populations, CNRS, Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive)

Evolutionary ecology in manioc fields. The little-known biology of a major tropical crop and its implications for conservation and development

Conserving ‘natural’ habitats depends on designing biodiversity-friendly agriculture, a task too important to be left to agronomists. We need tropical biologists not only in forests, but also in farmers’ fields. Crop plants offer much to interest them. Manioc (Manihot esculenta) is among the commonest plants of the tropics, yet few tropical biologists appreciate its fascinating biology. My talk will explore the evolutionary ecology of manioc, focusing on ant-plant mutualisms, seedling functional morphology, ecological speciation, and other topics more often studied in rainforests than in farmers’ fields. During its domestication by Amazonian Amerindians, manioc evolved many adaptations to agricultural environments. Its divergence from its wild ancestor in many traits, and the great diversity maintained in its populations under traditional farming systems, are at first look paradoxical for a plant clonally propagated by farmers. I will show how farmers’ practices and natural processes have combined to shape the evolution of manioc, and then examine its biology in its introduced range throughout the tropics. During introduction, the specialized knowledge of Amerindians about managing manioc was not transmitted along with the plant. I will examine the consequences of loss of this knowledge, and in some regions its reinvention, for the plant’s evolutionary dynamics, and will finish by showing the lessons from crop evolutionary ecology for designing tropical agroecosystems.

Jose Manuel V (Joe) Fragoso (Biology, Stanford University, USA)

Are vertebrate abundance patterns in the Amazon a reflection of the cultural practices of Indigenous peoples?

Humans have been hunting vertebrate species for millennia. Humans throughout the tropics still depend on wild animals for much if not most of their meat. These animals also form part of complex spiritual systems that mediate human interactions with other vertebrate species. Non-human vertebrate abundance and diversity patterns may thus reflect human use patterns and spiritual belief systems if the human-non-human systems are tightly linked. One could then hypothesize that a change in one component of this system should lead to a response by the other. I describe patterns of vertebrate biodiversity and abundance for the North Rupunnuni region of Guyana, South America and relate this to cultural practices of indigenous peoples over an approximately 1500 km sq. area, and consider the implications of our results for other tropical areas.