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，有必要建立一个准确的生物多样性地区的植物区系清单，并记录人类与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·克雷斯将利用创新的DNA条形码方法，促进对在墨西哥普埃布拉东北山脉28个城市的5个Nahuat和2个Totonac村庄收集的植物群标本的物种进行快速鉴定。 葛底斯堡学院的语言学家乔纳森·艾史密斯将与克雷斯合作，利用最先进的语言文献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群的传统命名和分类的录音。 语言学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，从濒危语言中获取植物学信息将有助于跟踪濒危语言社区祖先家园的生态变化。 此外，Amith和Kress理论上认为，地理上邻近的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。 利用该地区濒危语言讨论中关于植物生命的数据和DNA条形码参考库，Amith将研究生物分类群命名的变化。 他将使用从词汇借用和calques的线索，以映射有关特定植物标本的知识的传播，并将传播与社区迁移联系起来。 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。 语言数据可在拉丁美洲土著语言档案馆查阅。 该项目得到NSF国际和综合活动办公室的支持，因为它通过与梅西科（UNAM）的教师进行国际合作来提高研究水平，并将受益于使用当地资源，如墨西哥国家植物标本馆和国家帕拉委员会。

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.