Espécie-chave cultural : uma análise dos critérios de identificação e de preditores socioeconômicos

Abstract

The present study addresses the cultural keystone species, those which are responsible for the organization of certain socioecological systems, as do the key species in the ecosystems. In order to contribute to the debate about the cultural keystone species, the main objectives of this work were: to examine the criteria for identifying these species and verify if socioeconomic variables influence in the local importance of species highlighted in a culture. Initially, a general introduction is made, in which are presented the justification and the importance of the thesis. Then, in the review of literature, it exposes the theoretical framework on cultural keystone species, including a brief presentation of the analogy with key species in ecology. Later, the first manuscript of the thesis is presented, where the difference between species which have only cultural and/or economic importance and the cultural keystone species were analyzed, and were compared to the community and author´s vision in the identification of them. To do this, free lists were made in extractive communities of Araripe Environmental Protection Area in Apodi, Ceará, Northeastern Brazil, participatory officinal, botanical collections and participative statistical analysis of the data collected. It was noted that cultural keystone species are different from those that have only cultural and/or economic importance. It was found that community and authors report in a similar manner on the species that may be keys culturally, and see the species that only have cultural and/or economic importance differently. Cariocar coriaceum Wittm. (pequi) as cultural keystone species in the communities of Horizonte and Sítio Macaúba and Atallea speciosa Mart. ex. Spreng (babaçu) to the community of Sitio Macaúba were identified. In the second manuscript, the hypothesis that socioeconomic variables do not influence the local importance of species that could be cultural keystone species is tested. From free listings, in which each informant organized the species by importance, the value of local importance of each species by informant was calculated. We used the General Linear Models (GLM) and the test of Mann-Wittney to verify that there was influence of variables in the local importance of the species. It was observed that, in general, the socio-economic variables, such as age, education, monthly income, gender and occupation, have no influence on the importance of local plants. This shows that, in a population analysis, species with local importance enjoy such high prestige that it is independent of these variables. And, finally, in the concluding deliberations, it is suggested that future studies on cultural keystone species consider all the local botanical system of the community which is being studied, and it is therefore recommended that environmental supervisors involve the cultural keystone species in biocultural conservation strategies, since these species are thus important to the process of the people’s adaptation to the socioecological system.