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"Eco-symbiotic complementarity" refers to mechanisms of reciprocal support among people settled in different ecological zones to access zone-specific useful products. We evaluated eco-symbiotic complementarity and how socio-spatial marginality influences the exchange of natural products between Nahua communities in the municipality of Coyomeapan and the nearest markets in the Sierra Negra of Puebla, Mexico. Through ethnobotanical interviews, we documented 191 useful morphospecies of plants and fungi, 136 of them sold in the municipal market. β diversity analyses showed that most traded morphospecies were specific to the predominant vegetation type of the study communities. We established that plants, including cultivated crops, exhibit complementarity patterns by commercialization, while fungi do not through an examination of exchange networks. Communities' degree of marginalization influences their traded products specialization and the scope of their trade routes. The diversity of ecosystems favors a complementarity network that persists through the municipal market and increases the availability of resources for people inhabiting them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the literature regarding gendered patterns of participation in conservation by examining participation in sea turtle conservation and community life in coastal Northeast Brazil. We used a mixed methods approach, comprised of questionnaires and focus groups, and our findings indicate that conservation participation can be partially explained by gendered characteristics related to issues of structural access, cultural attitudes and values, and agency. Results show greater gender differences in access and agency than attitudes toward sea turtle conservation, demonstrating how patterns of participation are influenced by close knit and gendered social networks that decrease an individual's chance of being invited to participate. While gender issues are not universal, a framework examining issues of structure, culture, and agency allows differences related to age, class, race, etc. to be considered as well, presenting useful information in understanding the barriers and motivations involved in conservation participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact on human ecology of the ivory trade entailed direct and indirect effects. First, the reduction or extermination of elephant populations had direct effects on the vegetation patterns over large areas. Second, the economic activities connected with hunting, transport, and trading affected regional systems of exchange and thereby, indirectly through the political economy, settlements, patterns of resource utilization, population parameters, and specialization of production. Ethnohistorical information from the 1800s suggests how coastal goods interacted with regional systems of exchange and environmental exploitation. Although such information cannot be directly projected onto the more distant past, it can be used to establish some possible pathways through which the hunting of elephants and transportation and trade of ivory could have affected the ecology of human resource use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]