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Tracking fish consumption could provide additional information on changes to fish stocks, one of the planet's main protein sources. We used data on seafood consumption in fishing villages in Brazil over time to test for changes in: species richness, diversity, and composition, fish size and trophic levels, consumption of endangered species, and functional diversity (namely, species with different behavioral and habitat preferences). Our results demonstrate the potential to include this additional data source to complement fisheries data, especially in data-poor countries. With respect to Brazil specifically, we identified a decrease in both the average trophic level and size of the species consumed. While the consumption of endangered species had always been low, most of these species changed over time, thereby suggesting that many, especially elasmobranchs, may have become rare on the plates. Although it may be hard to fully isolate cultural changes from biodiversity changes when it comes to analyzing consumption data, by examining diets it is possible to identify aspects worth investigating further, such as, whether the decrease in dietary trophic levels mirrors a decrease in environmental trophic levels. In places where fisheries data are either inexistent or limited, diet track surveys, such as household expenditure programs, can help trace the changes caused by fisheries in stocks and habitats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greater socio-environmental instability favors the individual production of knowledge because innovations are adapted to new circumstances. Furthermore, instability stimulates the horizontal transmission of knowledge because this mechanism disseminates adapted information. This study investigates the following hypothesis: Greater socio-environmental instability favors the production of knowledge (innovation) to adapt to new situations, and socio-environmental instability stimulates the horizontal transmission of knowledge, which is a mechanism that diffuses adapted information. In addition, the present study describes “how”, “when”, “from whom” and the “stimulus/context”, in which knowledge regarding medicinal plants is gained or transferred. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews from three groups that represented different levels of socio-environmental instability. Socio-environmental instability did not favor individual knowledge production or any cultural transmission modes, including vertical to horizontal, despite increasing the frequency of horizontal pathways. Vertical transmission was the most important knowledge transmission strategy in all of the groups in which mothers were the most common models (knowledge sources). Significantly, childhood was the most important learning stage, although learning also occurred throughout life. Direct teaching using language was notable as a knowledge transmission strategy. Illness was the main stimulus that triggered local learning. Learning modes about medicinal plants were influenced by the knowledge itself, particularly the dynamic uses of therapeutic resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]