A hipótese da aparência ecológica poderia explicar a importância local de recursos vegetais em uma área de caatinga?

Abstract

The present work aimed to identify the relations between a rural community and the resources of native wood vegetation of a fragment forest pertaining to the caatinga domain, in the municipality of Caruaru (Northeastern of Brazil). Surveys were carried out to study the local botanical knowledge through observation, guided tdur and semistructured interviews. Semi-permanent sampling parcels were done in two areas of the forest, one of those 2 km far from the community and the other adjacent to it, to characterize the wood vegetation, with data samplings to further calculation of abundance, ecological dominance and botanical material to identification. At the same time, it was tested the hypothesis that the availability of a resource (“apparency”) is related to the relative importance (established by the use value). The 98 informants recognize the use of 32 wood species from the far area and 34 in the area adjacent to the community, distributed in eight categories of use: fuel, building, medicinal, food, fodder, technology, veterinary and other uses. The wood products of the vegetation concentrate the great part of species richness and citations of use. Even though men and women have attributed similar use values to the species, men attribute higher values, mainly those related to the use of wood. The most used part of the plant was the wood followed by the bark. The “apparency” explains, but only to a low degree all use-value of plant in medicinal, building, fuel and technology categories.