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This study examines the degree to which knowledge of traditional plant medicine is gendered among communities settled near Chapada Diamantina National Park in eastern Bahia state, northeast Brazil. Employing a quantitative analysis of a sample plant pharmacopoeia, I focus on the relationship between gender, age and the socioeconomic impacts of globalization in this tropical region. Results indicate that women are more familiar with both the field identities and the medicinal values of the local flora than are men. This division is pronounced among older participants (30–80 years) who represent a reservoir of medicinal plant knowledge that is in danger of disappearing. I suggest that this heightened understanding among women is due to historical gender divisions of space and labour; the inherently high potential for medicinal plant identification and collection in anthropogenic habitats; and the role of women as primary healthcare givers for the family.

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SUMMARYStudy of the ecological and economic effects of invasive species has paralleled their progressively pervasive influence worldwide, yet their cultural impacts remain largely unexamined and therefore unrecognized. Unlike biological systems, where the ecological consequences of biological invasions are primarily negative, from an ethnoscientific standpoint, invasive species' impacts on cultural systems span a range of effects. Biological invasions affect cultural groups in myriad, often unpredictable and at times contradictory ways. This review groups case studies into a conceptual matrix suggesting three categorically different cultural impacts of invasive species. Culturally impoverishing invasive species precipitate the loss or replacement of culturally important native species and their associated cultural practices. Culturally enriching invasive species augment cultural traditions, through their inclusion in lexicons, narratives, foods, pharmacopoeias and other tangible and intangible ends. Culturally facilitating invasive species can provide continuity and reformulation of traditional ethnobiological practices. An understanding of the processes by which invasive biota become culturally enriching, facilitating, or impoverishing can contribute to articulating interdisciplinary programmes aimed at simultaneously conserving biological and cultural diversity.

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The reproductive ecology of piassava palm (Attalea funifera Mart.) was investigated for 19 months in the Atlantic forests of eastern Brazil. Its breeding biology is characterized by the production of functionally female, male and bisexual inflorescences. Staminate sterility is positively correlated with number of pistillate flowers. Staminate and pistillate flowers are receptive at anthesis. Bagging tests for apomixis were negative. Although geitonogamy can occasionally occur, outcrossing predominates. Pollen is relatively dry, but wind pollination is not a significant factor in cross pollination. Although inflorescences are visited by large numbers of insects, pollination is effected mainly by small sap beetles (Mystrops sp.) and weevils (Phyllotrox tatianae), which feed and breed in fertile staminate flowers. Pistillate flowers, which offer no reward to pollinators, appear to attract insect visitors by olfactory and visual imitation of staminate flowers, that is, via Bakerian mimicry. Flower production, fruit maturation, leaf production and leaf abscission occur continuously throughout the year. Flowering exhibits a distinct peak during the warmest months (Dec–Apr). Given its ubiquity throughout the region, A. funifera may well serve as a flowering and fruiting keystone species.

Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) provide material subsistence and cash income to millions of rural people, particularly in less developed countries. This paper offers a systematic review of recent trends (2000-2010) in the ecological and economic sustainability of NTFPs. Of 101 NTFP ecological studies, most addressed harvest consequences at the population-individual level (62.4%), and over half (52.5%) were carried out in Latin America. Nearly two-thirds of research (63.3%) reported that extraction was sustainable or likely to be so, compared to less than one-fifth (17.8%) that found it to be unsustainable. Extractive enterprise in Latin America was most often reported as ecologically sustainable (82.6%), and least often in Asia (58.8%). Because little of the economic NTFP literature identifies whether extractive returns meet the financial needs of extractors, at least on a daily basis, we outline economic sustainability criteria in terms of whether returns surpass an absolute poverty line or alternative wage. Of the 71 articles presenting financial data, over two-thirds met or exceeded the threshold of economic sustainability. Roughly 75% of studies demonstrated that gatherers earned more than USD$2 PPP/day (the international absolute poverty line) or more than a local wage. These positive results do not, however, demonstrate that gathering reduces long-term poverty because forest dependence, and likely tenure security, remains low among these populations. Caution must be exercised in terms of extending these results into the future, as changing economic conditions, rates and sources of habitat modification, and climate change all point to increased extractive pressures on tropical forests and savannas.

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