Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Esta reseña del libro del libro Protección y cura. Medicina tradicional en comunidades negras de la Costa Chica, Oaxaca; presenta ela aporte   los estudios afromexicanos y a la discusión sobre el reconocimiento de esta población a nivel nacional por parte de la autora Cèline Demol.  con su investigación sobre salud y procesos de curación, medicina tradicional y partería en cuatro diferentes pueblos de la Costa Chica que se reconocen como negros-afromexicanos. 

The main goal of this paper is to describe vegetal ethnography, an area of study interested in observing plants as beings with agency. Based on a literature review, the theoretical proposal, the main concepts, and some relevant works and authors are presented. Among the results, it is found that the reworking of the notion of agency offers anthropology new opportunities to explore how plants are embedded in social life entanglements. Although vegetal ethnography’s methods are still being developed and there is debate about the limits and possibilities of the tools employed, these new perspectives make it feasible to access other ways of understanding the world, different from those that modernity has established. It is concluded that recognizing the capabilities of plants is a way of questioning human exceptionalism and imagining futures based on collaboration and interdependence.

[Introduction]: A new site classification system for Tectona grandis L.F. is presented based on information collected during more than 30 years of research. [Objective]: To construct an updated family of site index curves for teak plantations for the pacific coast of Costa Rica. [Methodology]: The data came from the stem analysis of 55 dominant trees with ages between 6 and 40 years, selected in different locations of the Pacific slope. These were combined with dominant height data from 38 permanent plots that were part of 6 formal growth and yield trials remeasured between 10 and 32 years old. Growth models were fitted by mixed effects nonlinear regression, considering that trees and plots were remeasured annually. Six mathematical models were used: Richards, Gompertz, Logistic, Korf, Mitscherlich and Weibull. The models were re-parameterized according to the observed dominant height (S) at the base age of 16 years, associating it with a random effect. The best model was chosen according to the information criteria and goodness-of-fit statistics. [Results]: The Akaike and Bayesian information criteria indicate that Korf's model was superior to the others, both in the anamorphic and polymorphic variant; the goodness-of-fit statistics confirmed this appreciation. The residual analysis showed a better fit for this model when describing growth in dominant height with age. Although the polymorphic model was superior, the observed trends seem to rule out the existence of a common asymptote for teak plantations growing in the different site qualities. [Conclusions]: The results showed that the data from stem analysis and permanent plots show similar pattern trends, which are adequately represented by the Korf´s model.

[Introduction]: The Forest Area Affected by Fires (FAAF) could be explained by variables that that although they are intuitively known, they have not been quantified to estimate their importance in preventing the fight of forest fires. [Objective]: To propose a statistical model that demonstrates implicated factors on SAAF and thereby provide initial information for the strengthening of a fire prevention scheme. [Methodology]: Were applied two statistical techniques 1) principal component analysis, was used to justify the variables; and, 2) panel data analysis was used to understand the relationship between intuitive variables on detection, arrival and duration, on the affected surface. [Results]: The results indicate that 11 states of Mexican Central-Western Region there is a relationship between the Quantity and Duration of forest fires, more than proportional for the Quantity of Fires (1.28) and less than proportional with the Duration of these (0.52), in relation to the FAAF. [Conclusions]: This model can have applications in the planning of actions and schemes for the protection and prevention of forest ecosystems and the allocation of resources (human, equipment, and materials) more effective and efficient to prevent and reduce forest fires.

[Introducción]: La investigación a largo plazo sobre el crecimiento y el rendimiento maderable de las plantaciones con especies forestales nativas del bosque seco tropical es escasa. A pesar de que en muchas de estas especies se reconoce un verdadero potencial para la producción comercial de madera. [Objetivo]: Construir un sistema de clasificación de la productividad basado en el crecimiento de la altura dominante e índices de sitio locales para Samanea saman con el fin de facilitar los trabajos de manejo técnico de esta especie nativa en el bosque seco tropical de Liberia, Costa Rica. [Metodología]: Los datos altura dominante-edad, utilizados para construir las curvas de altura dominante e índice de sitio, se obtuvieron de parcelas permanentes, las cuales fueron medidas anualmente durante 21 años. Se probaron ocho modelos de regresión utilizados en la literatura forestal. Los modelos fueron evaluados estadísticamente y se graficaron los valores estimados versus los valores observados, con el fin de analizar gráficamente el comportamiento de los datos. [Resultados]: El modelo más satisfactorio fue el de Prodan (1951) con R2adj de 93.72 %, CME = 3.9706, EEE = 1.9926 y EMA = 1.4830 para un valor–P de (0.00001) a un nivel de confianza del 95 %. La curva promedio ajustada por el modelo de Prodan (1951), al inicio presenta una inclinación que sugiere un crecimiento inicial rápido, con una primera sección de la curva que se levanta rápidamente hasta la edad de 8 años; luego, una segunda sección entre las edades de 9 y 14 años, donde continúa creciendo, pero con una tasa de incremento menor. [Conclusiones]: El modelo de Prodan (1951) presentó la mejor calidad de ajuste. El sistema de clasificación de la productividad propuesto tomó como edad base 15 años para construir las curvas que corresponden a los índices de sitio 9, 12, 15 y 18, los cuales abarcan todo el intervalo de calidad de sitios observado.

[Introduction]: Wildlife refuges are crucial to improve connectivity in the context of biological corridors, as they conserve forest patches and consequently neotropical mammal populations. However, in order to devise conservation and management strategies, it is a priority to carry out field studies that validate these efforts and measure their effectiveness over time. [Objective]: To generate baseline information on the population status of medium and large terrestrial mammals and their activity patterns, to help the management and protection of the Lapa Verde Wildlife Refuge. [Methods]: we analyzed the camera-trapping methodology by placing 13 camera traps per sampling block, divided in two blocks (1 855 ha) during January - February 2015 and December 2015 - January 2016. [Results]: The sampling effort was 1 584 nights, capturing 18 species with the presence of large and medium predators such as Panthera onca, Canis latrans, Leopardus pardalis and Leopardus wiedii, as well as species of prey such as Silvilagus sp., Dasypus novemcinctus, Dasyprocta punctata and Cuniculus paca. The species with the highest RAI was D. punctate. The richness was similar between blocks. However, the patterns of circadian activity differed between some species (L. pardalis and D. punctata). [Conclusions]: Species such as jaguars and tapirs, that require large areas of land to settle, use these conservation blocks which indicates the importance of the conservation of these blocks.