Documenting Traditional Ecological Knowledge in the Sierra Nororiental de Puebla, Mexico, in Synchronic and Diachronic Perspectives

为了了解世界各地植物生命的多样性和潜在利益，并评估生物多样性丧失的影响，有必要建立一份准确的生物多样性区域的植物区系清单，并记录人类与该丰富环境的不断演变的相互作用。为此，史密森学会的植物学家约翰·克雷斯将使用创新的DNA条形码方法，帮助快速鉴定从墨西哥普埃布拉山脉28个市镇的5个Nahuat和2个Totonac村庄收集的植物标本的物种。墨西哥是一个生物多样性令人难以置信的地区。葛底斯堡学院的语言学家乔纳森·艾史密斯与克雷斯合作，将使用最先进的语言文档技术创建一个广泛的数字数据库，其中包括土著专家讨论当地植物区系的传统命名和分类的录音。语言和植物学数据库将支持保存关于该区域生物多样性的土著知识。Amith和Kress假设，从濒危语言获取植物学信息将有助于跟踪濒危语言社区祖籍的生态变化。此外，Amith和Kress的理论认为，地理上邻近村庄的比较植物学信息将揭示迁徙、文化接触和语言变化的历史模式。利用有关该地区植物生命的濒危语言讨论的数据和DNA条形码参考库，Amith将研究生物分类群命名的变化。他将使用词汇借用和计算的线索来绘制关于特定植物标本的知识传播图，并将传播与社区迁徙联系起来。数据将被存储在墨西哥的各种药物馆和史密森博物馆。拉丁美洲土著语言档案馆将提供语言数据。该项目得到了国家科学基金会国际和综合活动办公室的支持，因为它通过与墨西哥国立自治大学(UNAM)的教员进行国际合作来提高研究水平，并将受益于当地资源的使用，如墨西哥国家植物标本馆和墨西哥国家生物多样性委员会。

In order to understand the diversity and potential benefits of plant life around the world and to assess the impact of the loss of biodiversity, it is necessary to create an accurate floristic inventory of bio-diverse regions and to record the evolving interactions of humans with that rich environment. To this end, botanist John Kress of the Smithsonian will use innovative DNA barcoding methodology to facilitate rapid identification to species of the flora specimens collected in five Nahuat and two Totonac villages in the 28 municipalities of the Sierra Nororiental de Puebla, Mexico -- an incredibly bio-diverse region of the world. Working in tandem with Kress, linguist Jonathan Amith of Gettysburg College will use state-of-the-art language documentation techniques to create an extensive digital database of recordings of native experts discussing traditional nomenclature and classification of local flora. The linguistic and botanical databases will support the preservation of indigenous knowledge about the biodiversity of this region. Amith and Kress hypothesize that accessing botanical information from endangered languages will help track changes in the ecology of the ancestral homelands of endangered language communities. In addition, Amith and Kress theorize that comparative botanical information across geographically proximate villages will reveal historical patterns of migration, cultural contact, and language change. Using data from the endangered language discussions about plant life in the region and DNA barcode reference library, Amith will study shifts of biotaxa nomenclature. He will use clues from lexical borrowing and calques to map the spread of knowledge about particular botanical specimens and link that spread to community migrations. Data will be stored in various herbariums in Mexico and at the Smithsonian Museum. Linguistic data will be accessible at the Archive of Indigenous Languages of Latin America. This project supported by NSF's Office of International and Integrative Activities because it enhances research excellence through international collaboration with faculty at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and will benefit from use of local resources such as the National Herbarium of Mexico and the Comisión Nacional Para El Connocimineto Y Uso De La Biodiversidad.