Doctoral Dissertation Research: Conceptualizing Crop Domestication and Diversification

2011年，联合国粮食及农业组织（FAO）报告称，仅在上个世纪，全球约75%的植物遗传资源已经消失。此外，虽然粮农组织估计到2050年全球粮食生产需求将增加60%，但他们还预测用于作物改良的植物遗传资源将减少三分之一。面对如此岌岌可危的粮食安全，美国和许多国家一样，必须努力培育、驯化和保存作物遗传资源，以帮助满足日益增长的农业需求。驯化作物的进化亲缘和祖先（即作物野生亲缘）在植物驯化和多样化中发挥着宝贵的作用，通常作为有价值性状（例如，抗虫害、增加营养、耐旱、增加产量）的来源，或作为潜在的驯化物本身。重要的是，作物和野生作物的相对多样性在历史上和当代都受到土著人民的改变，他们通过有意识和无意识的环境改变形式，在作物驯化和多样化方面发挥着关键作用。除了为一名人类学研究生的培训提供资金外，这项研究产生的数据还将促进美国和国外越来越多的参与式作物育种、驯化和保护项目，这些项目依赖于土著农民和研究人员之间的有效交流。约翰·怀特在杜兰大学威廉·贝利博士的指导下，将探索有关驯化和多样化的土著实践和观点之间的关系，以及合作作物驯化、保护和多样化项目。该项目将在亚马逊鲁纳地区进行，这是厄瓜多尔一个自称为亚马逊克丘亚人或基奇瓦人的文化群体。许多土著地区（例如厄瓜多尔亚马逊河流域的Runa地区）与作物遗传资源的主要全球生物多样性热点地区重叠。然而，尽管土著居民广泛参与作物驯化和多样化，并且越来越多的保护主义者和植物育种家在作物遗传多样性的热点地区与土著人民合作，但土著居民关于驯化和多样化的知识和实践仍亟待研究。具体而言，本研究包括为期一年的民族志研究，包括日常参与者观察和半结构化访谈。这项调查所产生的数据将有助于环境人类学理论，说明：(1)土著人民如何概念化和调节关键的生物过程（例如，驯化和多样化）；(2)环境变化的形式、功能和价值，如植物驯化和多样化，如何以及为什么会在社会文化背景内和跨社会文化背景发生变化。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In 2011, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that in the last century alone, ~75% of global plant genetic resources have been lost. Moreover, while the FAO estimates that global food production demands will rise 60% by 2050, they also predict that plant genetic resources for crop improvement will shrink by a third. In the face of such endangered food security, the United States, like many countries, must strive to breed, domesticate, and conserve crop genetic resources to help satisfy such increased agricultural demands. The evolutionary relatives and progenitors of domesticated crops (i.e., crop wild relatives) play invaluable roles in plant domestication and diversification, often acting as sources of valuable traits (e.g., pest resistance, increased nutrition, drought tolerance, increased yield) or as potential domesticates themselves. Importantly, crop and crop wild relative diversity have historically and contemporarily been modified by indigenous peoples, who play key roles in crop domestication and diversification through their conscious and unconscious forms of environmental modification. In addition to providing funding for the training of a graduate student in anthropology, the data produced by this study will facilitate the growing number of participatory crop breeding, domestication, and conservation projects in the United States and abroad, which depend upon effective cross-communication between indigenous farmers and researchers.John White, under the supervision of Dr. William Balee of Tulane University, will explore the relationship between indigenous practices and perspectives concerning domestication and diversification, and collaborative crop domestication, conservation, and diversification projects. The project will take place among Amazonian Runa, a self-designation of a cultural group in Ecuador known as the Amazonian Quechua or Kichwa. Many indigenous territories (e.g., that of the Runa in the Ecuadorian Amazon) overlap with major global biodiversity hotspots for crop genetic resources. However, despite widespread indigenous involvement in crop domestication and diversification, and the growing number of conservationists and plant breeders working with indigenous peoples in hotspots of crop genetic diversity, indigenous knowledge and practices concerning domestication and diversification remain critically understudied. Specifically, this research consists of one year of ethnographic study composed of daily participant observation and semi-structured interviewing. The data resulting from this investigation will contribute to environmental anthropological theory by illustrating: (1) how indigenous peoples conceptualize and modulate critical biological processes (e.g., domestication and diversification); and (2) how and why the form, function, and value of environmental modifications, like plant domestication and diversification, can change within and across sociocultural contexts.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.