| The Lacandon Maya, an indigenous group who live in Chiapas, Mexico, practice a form of swidden agroforestry that conserves the surrounding rainforest ecosystem while cycling the majority of their land through five successional stages, which include an herbaceous stage (kor or milpa), two shrub stages (robir and jurup che, or acahual taken together), and two secondary forest stages ( mehen che and nu kux che). A portion of their land is kept in primary forest (taman che).; This study quantitatively describes the plant community and the associated soil ecology of each stage to answer the question of how plant community management in Lacandon systems may be affecting soil ecology.; Plant community and soil ecology were a function of Lacandon management. In milpas where weeds were removed and applied to the field during daily weeding, plant parasite nematodes were reduced by 44% and fungivorous nematode concentrations were reduced by 50% compared to fields where this practice was not taking place. In these same fields, bacterivorous nematode relative biomass was positively related to soil organic matter concentration (R2 = 0.61, P < 0.001), suggesting that management practices reduced plant parasites and delayed the nematode succession from bacterivorous to fungivorous. Woody plant diversity stabilized in the Lacandon system by the beginning of the first forest stage, mehen che, by which time diversity was equivalent to that in the primary forest. In all stages Lacandon use 60% of the plant species for food, construction, medicine, and other uses.; The diversity of plant species used by the Lacandon, their fertility management, and the apparent effects of both on soil ecology indicate that Lacandon traditional ecological knowledge contains powerful tools for farmers in Latin America. Lacandon farmers are able to produce needed food and raw materials in order to meet a family's needs, while sustainably maintaining the fertility of their fields and the complexity of the surrounding ecosystems. Furthermore, this research shows that the Lacandon are cognizant of the natural abilities of certain species to fulfill the restoration needs in their systems. It demonstrates that Maya agroforestry and local knowledge could contribute to efforts to conserve and restore rainforests, and reduce deforestation by accelerating recovery while maintaining a sustainable productivity of the fallow in tropical agriculture. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
