title: Ixcatec ethnoecology: plant management and biocultural heritage in Oaxaca, Mexico.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Studying motives of plant management allows understanding processes that originated agriculture and current forms of traditional technology innovation. Our work analyses the role of native plants in the Ixcatec subsistence, management practices, native plants biocultural importance, and motivations influencing management decisions. Cultural and ecological importance and management complexity may differ among species according with their use value and availability. We hypothesized that decreasing risk in availability of resources underlies the main motives of management, but curiosity, aesthetic, and ethical values may also be determinant.
  
  
  METHODS
  Role of plants in subsistence strategies, forms of use and management was documented through 130 semi-structured interviews and participant observation. Free listing interviews to 38 people were used to estimate the cognitive importance of species used as food, medicine, fuel, fodder, ornament and ceremonial. Species ecological importance was evaluated through sampling vegetation in 22 points. Principal Components Analysis were performed to explore the relation between management, cultural and ecological importance and estimating the biocultural importance of native species.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We recorded 627 useful plant species, 589 of them native. Livelihood strategies of households rely on agriculture, livestock and multiple use of forest resources. At least 400 species are managed, some of them involving artificial selection. Management complexity is the main factor reflecting the biocultural importance of plant species, and the weight of ecological importance and cultural value varied among use types. Management strategies aim to ensure resources availability, to have them closer, to embellish human spaces or satisfying ethical principles.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Decisions about plants management are influenced by perception of risk to satisfy material needs, but immaterial principles are also important. Studying such relation is crucial for understanding past and present technological innovation processes and understand the complex process of developing biocultural legacy.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad, UNAM, Antigua Carretera a Pátzcuaro 8711, Morelia, Michoacán, 58190, Mexico.|Posgrado en Ciencias Biológicas, UNAM, Ciudad Universitaria Del. Coyoacan, C. P. 04510, México, Mexico.
authors.forename: Selene
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rangel-Landa
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad, UNAM, Antigua Carretera a Pátzcuaro 8711, Morelia, Michoacán, 58190, Mexico. acasas@cieco.unam.mx.
authors.forename: Alejandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Casas
authors.affiliation: Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental, UNAM, Antigua Carretera a Pátzcuaro 8711, Morelia, Michoacán, 58190, Mexico.
authors.forename: Erandi
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Rivera-Lozoya
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad, UNAM, Antigua Carretera a Pátzcuaro 8711, Morelia, Michoacán, 58190, Mexico.
authors.forename: Ignacio
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Torres-García
authors.affiliation: Centro de Investigaciones en Geografía Ambiental, UNAM, Antigua Carretera a Pátzcuaro 8711, Morelia, Michoacán, 58190, Mexico.
authors.forename: Mariana
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vallejo-Ramos
mesh_terms: D017753:Ecosystem; D019448:Ethnobotany; D008800:Mexico; D010944:Plants
keywords: Biocultural heritage; Cultural value; Domestication; Ethnoecology; Ixcatec; Plant management; Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley