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

0754434 Jernigan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至24个月的研究。该计划的奖项提供了联合研究的机会，并利用国外独特或互补的设施、专业知识和实验条件。该奖项将支持凯文·A·杰尼根博士与秘鲁伊基托斯亚马孙秘鲁研究所的阿隆索·何塞·阿尔瓦雷斯博士合作的为期12个月的研究奖学金(为期24个月)。该研究项目为期一年，研究秘鲁亚马逊的阿瓜鲁纳对当地环境中鸟类和植物之间的生态关系的知识。具体地说，东道主和PI在Alto Marañón地区的两个土著社区工作。马拉尼翁是这一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，以及对正在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的了解。他们将对鸟类进行实地鉴定，并收集阿瓜鲁纳地区认为可供鸟类食用的植物物种的标本。他们希望确定阿瓜鲁纳人是否倾向于概括他们认为有亲缘关系的鸟类和植物群体之间的生态关系。他们正在测试这样一种预测，即告密者倾向于说，他们认为有亲缘关系的鸟类吃的是相同的植物，他们认为有亲缘关系的植物被相同的鸟类吃掉。他们还预测，知识渊博的告密者比知识较少的告密者认识到此类一般模式的更多例外。这项调查涉及到一个更大的目标，即了解科学和当地的生态知识如何相互补充。特别是，该项目考察了关于鸟类和植物之间关系的阿瓜鲁纳生态知识与西方对这一地理区域有限的科学知识的比较。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发生的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.