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，有必要对生物多样性地区建立准确的植物区系清单，并记录人类与这种丰富环境的演变相互作用。为此，史密森学会的植物学家约翰·克雷斯将采用创新的DNA条形码方法，对墨西哥东北山脉（Sierra Nororiental de Puebla） 28个自治区的5个纳瓦特村和2个托托纳克村收集的植物标本进行快速鉴定。墨西哥是世界上生物多样性令人难以置信的地区。葛底斯堡学院（Gettysburg College）的语言学家乔纳森·阿米斯（Jonathan Amith）将与克雷斯合作，使用最先进的语言文档技术，创建一个广泛的数字数据库，记录当地专家讨论当地植物的传统命名法和分类。语言和植物学数据库将支持保存有关该地区生物多样性的土著知识。Amith和Kress假设，从濒危语言中获取植物信息将有助于追踪濒危语言社区祖先家园的生态变化。此外，Amith和Kress认为，地理上邻近村庄的比较植物学信息将揭示迁移、文化接触和语言变化的历史模式。利用该地区濒危植物语言讨论和DNA条形码参考库的数据，Amith将研究生物类群命名法的变化。他将使用词汇借用和calques的线索来绘制关于特定植物标本的知识传播图，并将传播与群落迁移联系起来。数据将存储在墨西哥的各种植物标本馆和史密森尼博物馆。拉丁美洲土著语言档案馆将提供语言资料。该项目得到了美国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大学Autónoma （UNAM）的教师的国际合作提高了研究的卓越性，并将受益于利用当地资源，如墨西哥国家植物标本馆和Comisión国家Para El conconcimineto Y Uso de La Biodiversidad。

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.