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Household Agrobiodiversity Management on Amazonian Dark Earths, Oxisols, and Floodplain Soils on the Lower Madeira River, Brazil

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Abstract

Smallholder farmers play a critical role in the maintenance of global agrobiodiversity. However, the social and environmental factors that shape agrobiodiversity and its management in rural smallholder communities are still debated among scholars. This study examines variation in the diversity of useful plant species (i.e., species richness) managed by households located in three distinct environments along the Lower Madeira River in the Central Brazilian Amazon: Amazonian Dark Earths (ADE), upland Oxisols (OX), and floodplain soils (FP). Among the 106 households studied, those located on ADE managed a significantly higher number of useful species than those on floodplain soils but not than those on Oxisols. A generalized linear mixed effects model indicates that the age of the household head, number of household members and adults, and area of land under cultivation are statistically significant factors that influence species richness across all households. Ethnographic data are employed to contextualize these findings and discuss other influences on agrobiodiversity management in rural Amazonian communities, including regional historical ecology and the life histories of individual farmers.

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Acknowledgments

Research was made possible with the support of a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Award for the primary author. Institutional support in Brazil was provided by the National Institute of Amazonian Research (INPA) where the primary author was a visiting scholar in the Botany Department between 2009 and 2010. The research protocol was approved by the University of Florida’s Institutional Review Board (protocol #2009-U- 0539). The authors wish to thank all the interviewees in Borba who spent time talking about the plants they manage. Augusto Oyuela-Caycedo, Mike Heckenberger, Chris McCarty, Marianne Schmink, and Nigel Smith provided useful comments on an early version of the manuscript. Two anonymous reviewers also offered helpful feedback and suggestions. Juliana Lins graciously provided many useful corrections and updates to species names in Table 1. Any errors remain those of the authors alone.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, Ball State University, Muncie, IN, USA

    Nicholas C. Kawa

  2. Department of Crop Science, North Carolina State University, Raleign, NC, USA

    José A. Clavijo Michelangeli

  3. Department of Agronomic Sciences, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil

    Charles R. Clement

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  1. Nicholas C. Kawa
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Correspondence to Nicholas C. Kawa.

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Kawa, N.C., Clavijo Michelangeli, J.A. & Clement, C.R. Household Agrobiodiversity Management on Amazonian Dark Earths, Oxisols, and Floodplain Soils on the Lower Madeira River, Brazil. Hum Ecol 43, 339–353 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-015-9738-0

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