Ancient Maya Agroforestry Echoing Through Spatial Relationships in the Extant Forest of NW Belize

Abstract

Previous research has shown that ancient Maya 'forest gardens'-tree-dominated home gardens containing a diversity of tree species used for daily household needsstill resonate in the species composition of the modern forest. Centuries of positive interspecies interactions may enhance the reproductive and survival success of garden species selected and encouraged by experienced Maya forest gardeners. We hypothesized that such interaction may result in aggregated spatial patterns between 32 pre-selected, commonly utilized forest garden species. In this paper, we developed a novel randomization (Monte Carlo) method designed to measure and test if the spatial relationships among pairs of Maya 'forest garden' trees species differ between areas that experienced high and low ancient settlement density in northwestern Belize. A total of 28 high ancient settlement density and 27 low ancient settlement density plots containing a total of 2772 and 3134 trees, respectively, were used for this study. The analysis revealed that 58 pairs of forest garden species tended to 'cluster' together significantly more often in the high settlement density areas than would be expected in a random distribution. In low settlement density plots, only 12 pairs of species exhibited a significant clustered spatial relationship. The effect was not species specific, suggesting that some synergistic relationships, mediated by third-party agents such as dispersers, may occur at the community level. The impacts of ancient human land use, echoing across centuries of dispersal, colonization, disturbance, and biotic and abiotic interactions, can have important implications for understanding the current biodiversity patterns and processes.Abstract in Spanish is available at http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/loi/btp.

Population structure of two low-density neotropical tree species under different management systems

“…In fact, the population density of adult trees of both species in the areas used for extraction of NTFPs was found to be between three and six times higher than in the undisturbed forest. This has been found for other species producing NTFPs in natural forests of the Amazon and in other tropical areas (Posey, 1985;Pinedo-Vasquez and Padoch, 1996;Miller and Nair, 2006;Bhagwat et al, 2008;Guix, 2009;Ross and Rangel, 2011). For instance, the 'castanhais' are aggregations of Brazilnut trees (Bertholletia excelsa Humb.…”

Ancient Maya impacts on the Earth's surface: An Early Anthropocene analog?

“…For instance, the moist microenvironments of sinkholes in northern Yucat an harbor cacao, which indigenous Maya farmers continue to maintain and may have done so for many years (G omez-Pompa et al, 1990). The "feral garden" concept comes from Ross (2011) and Ross and Rangel (2011), who found greater diversity of useful tree species to be correlated with denser Maya sites, which they attributed to long-term impacts of ancient Maya forest use. Also, Hightower et al (2014) used Lidar to study forest canopies at Caracol and found terraced slopes gave rise to significantly different forests, which had more vertical diversity, greater height, and fewer gaps, as we would expect where soils are thicker, younger, and can store more water and nutrients.…”

“…Nonetheless, there have been many ecological studies of human impacts on Amazonian forests (Roosevelt, 2013), but as in the Maya region, we have only a preliminary assessment of these anthropogenic forests. Paleoecological and botanical studies have attempted to get at the long-term impacts of the Maya on regional forests, and a few botanical studies have focused on what the current forest can tell us about the past G omez-Pompa et al, 1987;McSweeney, 1995;Schulze and Whitacre, 1999;White and Hood, 2004;Hayashida, 2005;Campbell et al, 2006;Ross et al, 2011;Hightower et al, 2014;Lentz et al, 2015;Thompson et al, 2015). The legacy of "Mayacene" forest impacts may take many forms, such as greater dominance of useful species due to ancient plantation remnants or non-useful species because of ancient over-harvesting.…”

Fire as a dimension of historical ecology: a response to Bowman et al. (2011)

“…Many areas of tropical forest have a long history of anthropogenic disturbance, including clear felling and fire, that still influences the composition of forests we today regard as ‘pristine’ (Brncic et al. , 2007; Ross & Rangel, 2011). In many tropical countries a substantial proportion of the population is dependent upon shifting agriculture, where fire is an integral part of a ‘forest–fallow’ cycle alternating between crop land and secondary forest regrowth over decades.…”