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Understanding Interrelationships Among Predictors (Age, Gender, and Origin) of Local Ecological Knowledge1

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Understanding Interrelationships among Predictors (Age, Gender, and Origin) of Local Ecological Knowledge. Understanding which factors predict local ecological knowledge can provide insight into how this knowledge is learned and how it may change in the future. We assess how knowledge of both useful plants and plant natural history vary according to gender, age, and origin in mestizo communities in Venezuela’s Caura Basin. Two sets of structured questionnaires were carried out with a total of 83 adults in three communities. Multiple regression analyses were used to identify the predictors of knowledge of 6 plant-use categories and natural history knowledge of 12 plant species. Gender, age, and origin (≥2 generations in the Caura vs. foreign-born) were all important predictors of knowledge of useful plants and natural history; however, their importance differed between the two types of knowledge. Origin was a more important predictor of knowledge of useful plants, whereas age was more important in predicting knowledge of natural history. This suggests differences in how each type of knowledge is learned and transmitted. Gender was an important predictor variable in most models, reflecting gender roles in the Caura mestizo communities. Also, for most categories of plant-use knowledge, the interactions among predictors were significant, indicating that the effect of one variable depended on the level of the other. These results illustrate how overlooking interactions among variables, as most studies to date have done, can risk misinterpretation of results by simplifying complex situations.

Estudio de las interrelaciones entre predictores del conocimiento ecológico local: Estudio de un caso en la cuenca del Caura, Venezuela. Comprender los factores que predicen el conocimiento ecológico local puede aportar un mayor entendimiento de como este conocimiento es aprendido y como podría cambiar en el futuro. Evaluamos como el conocimiento de plantas útiles y la historia natural de las mismas varia en función del sexo, la edad y el origen en comunidades mestizas de la Cuenca del Caura, Venezuela. Dos series de cuestionarios estructurados se llevaron a cabo, entrevistando a un total de 83 adultos en tres comunidades. Análisis de regresión múltiple fueron empleados para identificar los predictores del conocimiento de 6 categorías de uso de plantas y el conocimiento de historia natural de 12 especies de plantas. Sexo, edad y origen (≥2 generaciones viviendo en el Caura vs personas nacidas fuera) fueron predictores importantes del conocimiento plantas útiles y el conocimiento de historia natural, ademas su importancia difiere entre los dos tipos de conocimiento. Origen fue la variable independiente más importante para predecir conocimiento de plantas útiles, mientras que la edad fue más importante en la predicción del conocimiento de la historia natural. Esto sugiere diferencias en la forma en que cada tipo de conocimiento es aprendido y transmitido. Sexo fue un predictor importante en la mayoría de los modelos, reflejando los roles de género en las comunidades mestizas del Caura. Sin embargo, para la mayoría de los modelos de conocimiento de uso de plantas, las interacciones entre los predictores fueron significativas, indicando que el efecto de una variable depende del valor de las otras. Estos resultados ilustran que ignorar las interacciones entre variables independientes, como la mayoría de los estudios lo han hecho hasta la fecha, puede conllevar a interpretaciones erróneas de los resultados al simplificar situaciones que en realidad son más complejas.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are very grateful to all the wonderful families of Trincheras, Jabillal, and Puerto Cabello for their time and for sharing their ethnobotanical knowledge of the Caura forests with us. Special thanks to Enrique Bastidas and his family for their support, collaboration, and participation during the field work, and to H. McMillen and O. Gaoue for their help during the analysis and writing of this paper. We also thank two anonymous reviewers for their useful suggestions for improving a previous version of this manuscript. This research was funded by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Award and a Wildlife Conservation Society Award to T. S.

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Correspondence to Tamia Souto.

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Received 7 July 2011; accepted 24 February 2012.

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Souto, T., Ticktin, T. Understanding Interrelationships Among Predictors (Age, Gender, and Origin) of Local Ecological Knowledge1 . Econ Bot 66, 149–164 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-012-9194-3

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