Glenn H. Shepard

Is beauty in the eye of the beholder

Why are some humans considered more beautiful than others? Theory suggests that sexually reproducing organisms should choose mates displaying characters indicative of high genotypic or phenotypic quality. Attraction to beautiful individuals may therefore be an adaptation for choosing high-quality mates. Culturally invariant standards of beauty in humans have been taken as evidence favouring such an adaptationist explanation of attraction; however, if standards of beauty are instead no more than artefacts of culture, they should vary across cultures. Here we show that male preference for women with a low waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is not culturally universal, as had previously been assumed.

“Made in Brazil”: Human Dispersal of the Brazil Nut (Bertholletia excelsa, Lecythidaceae) in Ancient Amazonia1

Abstract“Made in Brazil”: Human Dispersal of the Brazil Nut (Bertholletia excelsa, Lecythidaceae) in Ancient Amazonia. The Brazil nut, Bertholletia excelsa, is a colossal tree of terra firme forest whose seeds represent the most important non-timber forest product in Amazonia. Its peculiarly inefficient dispersal strategy and discontinuous distribution have led some to hypothesize anthropogenic origins, but evidence to date has been inconclusive. Here we present results of a multidisciplinary study addressing this question. A review of the geographic distribution of B. excelsa and comparison with that of similar Lecythis species suggest a number of anomalies that are consistent with a recent and wide colonization of Bertholletia. Published studies and field observations indicate that anthropogenic disturbance facilitates Brazil nut regeneration. Recent genetic studies showing no sequence diversity and no geographical structuring of within-population variability support a rapid and recent irradiation from an ancestral population. Historical linguistic analysis of indigenous terms for Brazil nut suggests a northern/eastern Amazonian origin for Bertholletia, with a concomitant spread of Brazil nut distribution or cultivation to the south and west. Such an expansion would have been particularly facilitated by the emergence of intensive bitter manioc cultivation and networks of interethnic trade beginning in the first millennium C.E. Together, ecological, phytogeographic, genetic, linguistic, and archeological data reinforce the hypothesis that ancient Amazonian peoples played a role in establishing this emblematic and economically important rainforest landscape.‘Made in Brasil’: A dispersão antrópica da castanha-do-Pará (Bertholletia excelsa, Lecythidaceae) na antiga Amazônia. A castanha-do-Brasil, Bertholletia excelsa, é uma arvore enorme da terra firme cujas sementes representam o produto florestal não-madeireira mais importante da Amazônia. Alguns pesquisadores, observando sua estratégia ineficiente de dispersão e sua distribuição descontínua, propuseram a hipótese de que suas origens são antrópicas, mas as evidencias até a data são ambíguas. Aqui se apresentam resultados de um estudo multidisciplinar sobre essa questão. Uma revisão da distribuição geográfica de B. excelsa e uma comparação com as sapucaias (Lecythis spp.) sugerem várias anomalias compatíveis com uma recente colonização de Bertholletia pela Amazônia. Estudos publicados e observações em campo sugerem que a perturbação antrópica facilita a regeneração de castanhais. Estudos genéticos recentes demonstram nenhuma diversidade genética de seqüências de cpDNA e nenhuma estruturação geográfica da variabilidade intra-populacional, o qual sugere uma expansão rápida e recente. Estudos lingüísticos sugerem uma origem para Bertholletia no norte/leste da Amazônia, com uma expansão mais recente da distribuição ou cultivação para o sul e o oeste. Tal expansão teria sido facilitado pela emergência do cultivo intensivo de mandioca amarga e redes de contato inter-étnico especialmente a partir do primeiro milênio dC. Dados ecológicos, fitogeográficos, genéticos, lingüísticos, e arqueológicos reforçam a hipótese de que os povos amazônicos antigos tiveram um papel significante no estabelecimento dessa paisagem amazônica emblemática.

Secondary Forests on Anthropogenic Soils of the Middle Madeira River: Valuation, Local Knowledge, and Landscape Domestication in Brazilian Amazonia

Secondary Forests on Anthropogenic Soils of the Middle Madeira River: Valuation, Local Knowledge, and Landscape Domestication in Brazilian Amazonia. Anthropogenic forests and soils are widespread throughout Amazonia and are the product of the landscape domestication process carried out by Amazonian societies since pre-Colombian times. Areas of Terra Preta de Índio (TPI, Amazonian Dark Earths) are recognized by local rural residents and associated with specific forms of use and management of these soils and associated secondary forests. We used a quantitative approach to investigate how secondary forests on TPI are recognized and used by local residents along the middle Madeira River, Central Amazonia. Sixty-two residents were interviewed in three riverside communities and listed the ethnospecies and their uses in secondary forests on TPI and on non-anthropogenic soils (NAS). Local residents mentioned more ethnospecies on TPI (mean ± standard deviation: 19.5 ± 8.9) than on NAS (17.4 ± 8.5), and the use value of the environment to the informants (UVia) was higher on TPI (19 ± 5.7) than on NAS (16.2 ± 6.0). Eleven ethnospecies were classified as anthropogenic soil indicators, among which three intensively used palms are widely recognized as indicators of anthropogenic areas and two are domesticated to some degree. The intimate and lasting interactions between humans and TPI have favored the maintenance of secondary forests in these domesticated landscapes with a diverse assemblage of useful and domesticated species. Rural residents in Amazonia recognize these forests as an important source of food and other resources. The use, management, and traditional knowledge related to these domesticated landscapes may provide useful information for the understanding of Amazonian historical ecology and for the design of more efficient biodiversity management and conservation plans.ResumoFlorestas secundárias sobre solos antrópicos do médio Rio Madeira: valoração, conhecimento local e domesticação da paisagem na Amazônia Brasileira. Florestas e solos antrópicos são amplamente distribuídos na Amazônia e são resultado do processo de domesticação da paisagem pelas sociedades Amazônicas desde tempos pré-Colombianos. Áreas de Terra Preta de Índio (TPI) são reconhecidas por moradores locais e associadas com formas específicas de uso e manejo desses solos e das florestas secundárias associadas a eles. Utilizamos uma abordagem quantitativa para investigar como as florestas secundárias sobre TPI são conhecidas e utilizadas por moradores locais no médio Rio Madeira, Amazônia Central. Sessenta e dois moradores foram entrevistados em três comunidades ribeirinhas e listaram etnoespécies e os seus usos em florestas secundárias em TPI e em solos não-antrópicos (NAS). Os residentes locais mencionaram mais etnoespécies em TPI (média ± desvio padrão: 19,5 ± 8,9) do que em NAS (17,4 ± 8,5), e o valor de uso do ambiente para os informantes (UVia) foi maior em TPI (19 ± 5,7) do que em NAS(16,2 ± 6,0). Onze etnoespécies foram classificadas como indicadoras de solos antrópicos, entre as quais três palmeiras intensivamente utilizadas e amplamente reconhecidas como indicadoras de áreas antropogênicas, duas das quais domesticadas em algum grau. As interações íntimas e duradouras entre humanos e TPI nessas paisagens domesticadas favoreceram a manutenção de florestas secundárias com uma diversa assembléia de espécies úteis e domesticadas. Moradores locais na Amazônia reconhecem essas florestas como uma fonte importante de alimentos e de outros recursos. A utilização, manejo e o conhecimento tradicional relacionados a essas paisagens domesticadas podem fornecer informações úteis para o entendimento da ecologia histórica da Amazônia e para o desenvolvimento de estratégias mais eficientes de manejo e conservação da biodiversidade.

Indigenous ecotourism in the Amazon: a case study of 'Casa Matsiguenka' in Manu National Park, Peru

Ecotourism can capture biodiversity values and provide incentives for conservation, and many integrated conservation and development projects include an ecotourism component. One key assumption behind this strategy is that ecotourism businesses can achieve financial viability. This paper presents a financial case study of the well-known community-based ecotourism lodge ‘Casa Matsiguenka’, owned by an indigenous Matsigenka population in Manu National Park (Peru), only the second such project to be thoroughly analysed in the literature. Built and financed from 1997 to 2003 with German official aid, the lodges revenues have only just exceeded operating costs and have not covered the costs of infrastructure replacement, thereby failing to secure long-term business sustainability. Wages and income from handicraft sales have covered about a third of individual cash needs in the two participating communities, but communal income from lodge operating profits (for example to pay for community infrastructure, health care or education) has been minimal. The lodges difficulties are attributed largely to a flawed business plan in which the lodge has sold its services to its own competitors, a group of ecotourism agencies that have used their lobbying power to create a cartel in Manu. In a narrow analysis, the return on investment for this project has been approximately one-third of what could have been achieved to date by merely investing the start-up grant monies in a bank account and paying the interest directly to the Matsigenka communities in exchange for conservation actions. Broader analysis indicates the modest income and slow pace of business so far has permitted gradual social and economic adaptation on the part of culturally conservative indigenous communities. Moreover, the lodge project has generated processes of social and political organization, and sustained positive contact with Peruvian national society, which can be counted among its successes. The lodge has helped produce dialogue between the Park administration and the Matsigenka communities, a process that could ultimately result in co-management agreements that help to resolve people-park conflicts in the Park.

The Grace of the Flood: Classification and Use of Wild Mushrooms among the Highland Maya of Chiapas

The Grace of the Flood: Classification and Use of Wild Mushrooms among the Highland Maya of Chiapas. The highland Maya of Chiapas in southern Mexico gather, consume, and sell a wide variety of mushrooms during the rainy season from June to November. The mushrooms are prized as a valuable source of nutrition and income, and a few species are used medicinally. No evidence exists for current or historical use of hallucinogenic mushrooms, though descriptions of mushroom intoxication suggest nonspecific knowledge about the presence of psychoactive properties in some mushrooms. Free-listing exercises elicited 50 or more mushroom names in each of the two main highland Mayan languages, Tzeltal and Tzotzil. Identification exercises using mushroom photographs permitted a preliminary assignment of mycological species, genera, or families to many of the local mushroom names collected in free-lists. Field identification during the rainy reason further emphasized the concordance of many local names with distinctive mycological groups or taxa. Mushroom sketches made by informants revealed the detailed knowledge many of the highland Maya maintain about mushroom morphology, ecology, and diversity. Mayan mushroom classification provides additional evidence for several of the universally presumed principles of ethnobiological classification. However, in contrast to their classification of plants, the Mayan system of mushroom classification is mostly concerned with edible and other useful species. (One such species, previously unknown to science, is described here.) Most species with no cultural use are presumed by the highland Maya to be poisonous and are relegated to a wastebasket category known locally as “stupid” or “crazy” mushrooms.

A plant needs ants like a dog needs fleas: Myrmelachista schumanni ants gall many tree species to create housing.

Hundreds of tropical plant species house ant colonies in specialized chambers called domatia. When, in 1873, Richard Spruce likened plant‐ants to fleas and asserted that domatia are ant‐created galls, he incited a debate that lasted almost a century. Although we now know that domatia are not galls and that most ant‐plant interactions are mutualisms and not parasitisms, we revisit Spruce’s suggestion that ants can gall in light of our observations of the plant‐ant Myrmelachista schumanni, which creates clearings in the Amazonian rain forest called “supay‐chakras,” or “devil’s gardens.” We observed swollen scars on the trunks of nonmyrmecophytic canopy trees surrounding supay‐chakras, and within these swellings, we found networks of cavities inhabited by M. schumanni. Here, we summarize the evidence supporting the hypothesis that M. schumanni ants make these galls, and we hypothesize that the adaptive benefit of galling is to increase the amount of nesting space available to M. schumanni colonies.

reply: The mystery of female beauty

Yu and Shepard reply — We have proposed that cultural invariance in beauty preferences could be an artefact of exposure to a dominant culture, and also that evolutionary psychology should embrace variation because adaptive evolution is as likely to produce variable outcomes as fixed ones. Accordingly, Manning et al . suggest that a culturally variable male preference for women with high WHR might reflect a culturally variable preference for producing more sons with higher testosterone levels. But this intriguing explanation probably does not apply to the Matsigenka people.

Empty forest or empty rivers? A century of commercial hunting in Amazonia

Trend analysis of the massive international hide trade in Amazonia reveals differential resilience to hunting for aquatic and terrestrial wildlife. The Amazon basin is the largest and most species-rich tropical forest and river system in the world, playing a pivotal role in global climate regulation and harboring hundreds of traditional and indigenous cultures. It is a matter of intense debate whether the ecosystem is threatened by hunting practices, whereby an “empty forest” loses critical ecological functions. Strikingly, no previous study has examined Amazonian ecosystem resilience through the perspective of the massive 20th century international trade in furs and skins. We present the first historical account of the scale and impacts of this trade and show that whereas aquatic species suffered basin-wide population collapse, terrestrial species did not. We link this differential resilience to the persistence of adequate spatial refuges for terrestrial species, enabling populations to be sustained through source-sink dynamics, contrasting with unremitting hunting pressure on more accessible aquatic habitats. Our findings attest the high vulnerability of aquatic fauna to unregulated hunting, particularly during years of severe drought. We propose that the relative resilience of terrestrial species suggests a marked opportunity for managing, rather than criminalizing, contemporary traditional subsistence hunting in Amazonia, through both the engagement of local people in community-based comanagement programs and science-led conservation governance.

Mushrooms and Economic Botany1

The tendency to use the word “mushroom” pejoratively persists widely in modern English. To paraphrase the late Stephen Jay Gould, prosperity and the arts “flower” while urban crime “mushrooms.” Many people in the United States are familiar with the schoolyard rhyme, “There’s a fungus among us/And we must stamp it out!!” How different is the sense of awe and wonder expressed in a Nahuatl saying from Morelos, Mexico: Tlateguini, xcaguigan, in moguitlaxcactia in nanagame—“It is thundering, listen you all, the mushrooms are putting on their shoes” (de Avila and Guzman 1980:312). Jared Diamond (1989:19), who has spent years documenting the detailed botanical and zoological knowledge of the Fore people of New Guinea, admits to a sudden sense of apprehension when his hosts served him forest mushrooms:

Pre-Columbian floristic legacies in modern homegardens of Central Amazonia.

Historical ecologists have demonstrated legacy effects in apparently wild landscapes in Europe, North America, Mesoamerica, Amazonia, Africa and Oceania. People live and farm in archaeological sites today in many parts of the world, but nobody has looked for the legacies of past human occupations in the most dynamic areas in these sites: homegardens. Here we show that the useful flora of modern homegardens is partially a legacy of pre-Columbian occupations in Central Amazonia: the more complex the archaeological context, the more variable the floristic composition of useful native plants in homegardens cultivated there today. Species diversity was 10% higher in homegardens situated in multi-occupational archaeological contexts compared with homegardens situated in single-occupational ones. Species heterogeneity (β-diversity) among archaeological contexts was similar for the whole set of species, but markedly different when only native Amazonian species were included, suggesting the influence of pre-conquest indigenous occupations on current homegarden species composition. Our findings show that the legacy of pre-Columbian occupations is visible in the most dynamic of all agroecosystems, adding another dimension to the human footprint in the Amazonian landscape.