Hunting as a Source of Local and Traditional Ecological Knowledge among Campesinos in Nicaragua

Campesinos are the most numerous hunters in Latin America. Yet, local and traditional knowledge (LTK) among campesinos about hunting is often invisible to conservationists who perceive them as nonindigenous or illegal hunters. Moreover, research and methods for accessing campesino hunting LTK are limited in theory and practice. Conservationists therefore know little about campesinos’ cultural understandings of hunting. We assessed the LTK of Nicaraguan campesinos to determine whether they shared cultural hunting knowledge. Through 11 months of ethnographic fieldwork, an ethnoecology framework, and cultural consensus analysis, we found that campesino hunting LTK was shared across the study community. This knowledge extended from a worldview that emphasized subsistence and hunting secrets to ensure bountiful harvests, expressed through folk taxonomies, hunting strategies, campesino-dog relationships, and preparation of hunted animals. Campesino hunting LTK emerged from campesino culture, yielding numerous implications for conservation in Latin America.

     

Neighborhood democracy in Nicaragua

Conclusion Outside observers are often too quick to assimilate Nicaraguan development to existing models provided, for example, by Cuba, and to employ the cold-war coordinates purveyed by the Reagan administrations and the mass media of the United States to locate modern Nicaraguan history. A more careful examination of the evidence reveals the particularity of the socio-political organizations introduced through the 1979 revolution, which often show innovative combinations of liberal and socialist models. Comparisons between the Nicaraguan CDS and the Cuban CDR must be made with caution, given the different origins and context in which the two organizations have developed.Whatever the theoretical merits of participatory democratic models, the CDS is not immune from problems of institutionalization, reward and incentive, and access to state power. Its future will depend upon its resilience and creativity in meeting these ongoing challenges of internal and external organization.Barry D. Adam, is a Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada.     

Ecological research for development

Uganda is rich in aquatic ecosystems. Commercial fishing involves an off‐take that may not be ultimately sustainable. Aquatic ecosystems, like the forests, are under pressure. Forests, for many years to come, will remain the main source of energy for the people. They also continue to be cleared to make way for agricultural use of the land. Research for development must address problems of this kind as they are at the heart of the development process.     

A highly alkaline Lake in Nicaragua

Zusammenfassung Der Nejapa-See liegt in einem vulkanischen Krater. Sein pH übertrifft 10; die Bikarbonat-Alkalinität betrug 4.39 g/l, die Karbonat-Alkalinitat 10.44 g/l. Vier Blaualgenarten wurden gefunden, jedoch kein Zooplankton.     

Post-Sandinista Ethnic Identities in Western Nicaragua

The meanings of the ethnic labels Indian and mestizo in Latin America are often treated as stable, bounded, and clearly marked by anthropologists, nationalists, and indigenous intellectuals alike. In Nicaragua, the post-Sandinista emergence of a discourse of indigenous identity in the western region, where successive state elites have considered that identity erased, underscores the dynamic mutability of both indigenous and mestizo ethnicities. This reconsideration derives from dialogue between anthropological analysis and an indigenous intellectual involved in organizing in the western region.     

Cleptobiosis in the antEctatomma ruidum in Nicaragua

Summary Observations of the ponerine antEctatomma ruidum suggested that this is a cleptobiotic species which appears to use the pheromone trails of other ant species to locate individual workers carrying food. To test this hypothesis an arena was set up to quantify the position of eachE. ruidum that entered the arena with respect to its position on or off a well-established foraging trail ofPheidole radoszkowskii, a myrmicine. Encounters betweenE. ruidum andP. radoszkowskii are described. Quantitative data and behavioral observations support the cleptobiosis hypothesis. This study adds yet another dimension to the diverse array of foraging strategies of the Ponerinae.     

Agrarian Reform and Class Consciousness in Nicaragua

Agrarian Reform and Class Consciousness in Nicaragua. Laura J. Enriquez. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997.206 pp.     

Cladocera (Crustacea) from Nicaragua

Thirty-one Cladocera taxa are recorded from lakes, rivers and ponds of Western Nicaragua. They include Alona bromelicola sp. nov. found in water accumulations in epiphytic Bromeliads. The Cladocera recorded are neotropical and circumtropical. Other invertebrates found are also listed.     

苔藓植物生态功能研究新进展

苔藓植物是一种形体微小、结构简单的高等植物,是水生向陆生的一种过渡形式,是高等植物中最原始的类群.随着研究的发展,人们越来越意识到苔藓植物在生态系统结构和功能中具有非常重要的作用,而且对苔藓在生物监测、水土保持、森林更新等方面已有一些研究和综述.本文针对目前环境科学研究中的一些热点问题,从全球气候变化、生态系统C、N、P循环等方面对近年来苔藓植物的生态功能研究方面的新进展进行了综述,以期加深人们对苔藓的认识并促进苔藓植物生态功能的进一步深入研究.     

Post-civil war adaptation and need in Managua, Nicaragua

Within seven years after the end of the Nicaraguan civil war in 1990, forced migrants, whose lives had been most disrupted by the conflict, were self-settled in a squatter community in the capital city of Managua and lived in extreme poverty with minimal health, education, security and social service supports. Compared with voluntary migrant neighbours, whose lives had been less affected by the conflict, forced migrants exhibited equal clinically significant symptoms of physical and mental health and psychosocial maladaptation. These findings run counter to generally held theory and assumptions about the negative long-lasting effects of the trauma and stress of war, forced migration and resettlement. Explanations are offered to explain the discrepancies between theory and the study findings as well as the dominance of poverty and socioeconomic status. Implications are also drawn for increasing social support and other durable forms of assistance that emerge from the study as important to meeting the needs of equally poor and unhealthy forced and voluntary migrants in proliferating squatter communities throughout the Third World.     

Unusual dengue virus 3 epidemic in Nicaragua, 2009

The four dengue virus serotypes (DENV1-4) cause the most prevalent mosquito-borne viral disease affecting humans worldwide. In 2009, Nicaragua experienced the largest dengue epidemic in over a decade, marked by unusual clinical presentation, as observed in two prospective studies of pediatric dengue in Managua. From August 2009-January 2010, 212 dengue cases were confirmed among 396 study participants at the National Pediatric Reference Hospital. In our parallel community-based cohort study, 170 dengue cases were recorded in 2009-10, compared to 13-65 cases in 2004-9. In both studies, significantly more patients experienced "compensated shock" (poor capillary refill plus cold extremities, tachycardia, tachypnea, and/or weak pulse) in 2009-10 than in previous years (42.5% [90/212] vs. 24.7% [82/332] in the hospital study (p<0.001) and 17% [29/170] vs. 2.2% [4/181] in the cohort study (p<0.001). Signs of poor peripheral perfusion presented significantly earlier (1-2 days) in 2009-10 than in previous years according to Kaplan-Meier survival analysis. In the hospital study, 19.8% of subjects were transferred to intensive care, compared to 7.1% in previous years - similar to the cohort study. DENV-3 predominated in 2008-9, 2009-10, and 2010-11, and full-length sequencing revealed no major genetic changes from 2008-9 to 2010-11. In 2008-9 and 2010-11, typical dengue was observed; only in 2009-10 was unusual presentation noted. Multivariate analysis revealed only "2009-10" as a significant risk factor for Dengue Fever with Compensated Shock. Interestingly, circulation of pandemic influenza A-H1N1 2009 in Managua was shifted such that it overlapped with the dengue epidemic. We hypothesize that prior influenza A H1N1 2009 infection may have modulated subsequent DENV infection, and initial results of an ongoing study suggest increased risk of shock among children with anti-H1N1-2009 antibodies. This study demonstrates that parameters other than serotype, viral genomic sequence, immune status, and sequence of serotypes can play a role in modulating dengue disease outcome.     

Ecological and population genetics research imperatives for transgenic trees

Applied research that supplies requisite, albeit incomplete, scientific knowledge is necessary if we are to address the legal, regulatory, and social/ethical issues regarding the use of transgenic trees. The technology for creating these trees has gotten far ahead of research on the ecological and population genetics impacts that may emerge. In this paper, we propose a comprehensive, interdisciplinary scientific approach that combines experimental results with model projections. We believe that much of this work must be completed before social issues can be clarified and resolved. Broad-based failure by those in the forestry-minded scientific community to carry out this interdisciplinary research could lead either to the establishment of transgenic trees with unintended consequences, or to an inability to realize the numerous advantages that this technology may offer.

Interhousehold Meat Sharing among Mayangna and Miskito Horticulturalists in Nicaragua

Recent analyses of food sharing in small-scale societies indicate that reciprocal altruism maintains interhousehold food transfers, even among close kin. In this study, matrix-based regression methods are used to test the explanatory power of reciprocal altruism, kin selection, and tolerated scrounging. In a network of 35 households in Nicaragua’s Bosawas Reserve, the significant predictors of food sharing include kinship, interhousehold distance, and reciprocity. In particular, resources tend to flow from households with relatively more meat to closely related households with little, as predicted by kin selection. This generalization is especially true of household dyads with mother-offspring relationships, which suggests that studies of food sharing may benefit from distinctions between lineal and collateral kin. Overall, this analysis suggests that exchanges among kin are primarily associated with differences in need, not reciprocity. Finally, although large game is distributed widely, qualitative observations indicate that hunters typically do not relinquish control of the distribution in ways predicted by costly signaling theory.