Ethnoecology, Resource Use, Conservation And Development In A ...

CHAPTER 7: ETHNOECOLOGY 2 - COMPARISON OF
ETHNOECOLOGICAL AND ECOLOGICAL DATA.
7.1 Introduction
This chapter presents an evaluation of the ethnoecological data set based upon a
direct comparison with the published literature. For each species subject to an in-
depth ethnoecological investigation, a comparison with the ecological literature was
conducted. The quantity and quality of literature available varied greatly among
species. A great deal of literature exists on some of the primate species, some of it
based upon multi-year studies, and collared peccaries have been the subject of
several studies, whereas for some other species such as the agoutis very little field
data is readily available and many basic aspects of their ecology have not been
documented. Further, in many cases the best ecological data sets available for
comparison are from field sites a considerable distance from that of the present
study. Much of the data on the ecology of peccaries, for example, is from a site in
Amazonian Peru. While there is some degree of floristic overlap, the habitats are
sufficiently different in terms of climate and floristic composition that differences
between the two sites in the ecology of local populations of a species are to be
expected.
Direct comparison was made both of species lists of foods consumed, and of
other aspects of the ecology. Food lists were compared at both the generic and
family levels. Given that many of the botanical glosses assigned to Wapishana plant
names in the present study are tentative, I considered it more appropriate to employ
the genus, at which the glosses used are more likely to be accurate, than the species
as the most precise taxonomic level for comparison. Owing to the differences in the
study sites between the two data sets, I also made a comparison at the family level.
Two sites which are widely-dispersed geographically may have limited floristic overlap
at the genus or species level, but most families of plants have a very wide
geographical distribution. As fructiferous characteristics are one of the major bases
according to which plants are assigned to families, it is to be likely that a species of
frugivorous animal will consume fruits of plants of the same family in different
locations.
Comparison of qualitative observations was made on the basis of compatibility.
For each observation included in the ethnoecological data set, information on the