International Research Fellowship Program: A Study of Aguaruna Traditional Ecological Knowledge of Fruiting Plant-Frugivore Mutualism

国际研究奖学金计划使美国科学家和工程师能够在国外进行9到24个月的研究。 该计划的奖项提供了联合研究的机会，以及使用独特或互补的设施，专业知识和国外的实验条件。该奖项将支持12个月的研究奖学金（在24个月的期限内）博士。Jernigan与Alonso Jose Alvarez博士在秘鲁伊基托斯的秘鲁亚马逊河流域研究所合作。该研究项目是一项为期一年的研究，研究秘鲁亚马逊河流域的阿瓜鲁纳人对当地环境中鸟类和植物之间的生态关系的认识。 具体而言，东道方和国际促进者正在上马拉尼翁地区的两个土著社区开展工作。 马拉尼翁是该项目的理想研究区域，因为其鸟类和植物物种的高度生物多样性以及所研究的生态相互作用的科学知识的不完整状态。 他们正在采访两个参与社区的成员，询问他们对当地鸟类的饮食、首选栖息地、种子传播的重要性、筑巢行为和觅食生态学的了解。 他们将进行鸟类物种的实地鉴定，并收集阿瓜鲁纳人认为可供鸟类食用的植物物种标本。 他们希望确定阿瓜鲁纳人是否倾向于在他们认为相关的鸟类和植物群体中概括生态关系。 他们正在测试一个预测，即被调查者倾向于说，他们认为有亲缘关系的鸟类吃同样的植物，而他们认为有亲缘关系的植物被同样的鸟类吃。他们还预测，知识渊博的线人认识到更多的例外，这种一般模式比知识较少的线人。 调查涉及更大的目标，即了解科学和当地生态知识如何互补。特别是，该项目研究了阿瓜鲁纳关于鸟类和植物之间关系的生态知识如何与该地理区域有限的西方科学知识进行比较。这项研究产生的数据也与秘鲁上马拉尼翁地区和亚马逊河上游邻近地区的热带生态和保护项目有关，因为它增加了对那里热带鸟类和植物物种之间复杂生态关系的了解。在数据分析之后，他们计划向参与研究的阿瓜鲁纳社区提供结果摘要。

0754434JerniganThe International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct nine to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.This award will support a twelve-month research fellowship (within a duration of twenty-four months) by Dr. Kevin A. Jernigan to work with Dr. Alonso Jose Alvarez at the Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonia Peruana in Iquitos, Peru.This research project is a year-long study of knowledge that the Aguaruna of the Peruvian Amazon have about the ecological relationships between birds and plants in their local environment. Specifically, the host and PI are working in two indigenous communities in the Alto Marañón region. The Marañón is an ideal study region for this project because of its high biodiversity of bird and plant species and the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the ecological interactions under study. They are interviewing members of the two participating communities, asking what they know about diet, preferred habitat, importance for seed dispersal, nesting behavior and foraging ecology of local bird species. They will carry out field identification of bird species and collection of specimens of plant species that the Aguaruna consider to be edible to birds. They wish to determine whether the Aguaruna tend to generalize ecological relationships within groups of birds and plants they consider to be related. They are testing the prediction that informants will tend to say that birds they consider to be related eat the same plants, and that plants they consider to be related are eaten by the same birds. They also predict that knowledgeable informants recognize more exceptions to such general patterns than less knowledgeable informants. The investigation relates to the larger goal of understanding how scientific and local ecological knowledge can be complimentary. In particular, the project examines how Aguaruna ecological knowledge about the relationships between birds and plants compares to the limited western scientific knowledge for this geographical region. The data generated in this research also have relevance to tropical ecology and conservation projects in the upper Marañón region of Peru and adjacent regions of the upper Amazon, by increasing understanding of the complex ecological relationships between tropical bird and plant species that occur there. After data analysis, they plan to give summaries of the results to the Aguaruna communities participating in the study.