Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Mexico: Use, Management, and Other Interactions Between People and Plants

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Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Mexico: Use,
Management, and Other Interactions
Between People and Plants
Javier Caballero, Laura Corte
´s, Cristina Mapes, Jose
´Blancas,
Selene Rangel-Landa, Ignacio Torres-García,
Berenice Farfa
´n-Heredia, Andrea Martínez-Balleste
´, and
Alejandro Casas
Introduction
This chapter shows a general panorama of ethnobotanical research and information
generated during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries among Mexican cultures,
according to the database Base de Datos Etnobotánicos de Plantas Mexicanas
(BADEPLAM) of the Botanical Garden at the Institute of Biology, UNAM. This
Javier Caballero was deceased.
J. Caballero · L. Cortés · C. Mapes · A. Martínez-Ballesté
Jardín Botánico, Instituto de Biología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM),
Coyoacán, Ciudad de México, Mexico
e-mail: jcaballero@ib.unam.mx;zarraga@ib.unam.mx;cmapes@ib.unam.mx;
andrea.martinez@ib.unam.mx
J. Blancas
Centro de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Conservación (CIBYC), Universidad Autónoma del
Estado de Morelos, Cuernavaca, Mexico
e-mail: jose.blancas@uaem.mx
S. Rangel-Landa
Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad (IIES), Universidad Nacional
Autónoma de México (UNAM), Morelia, Mexico
Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología and Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia
(CONACYT –ENAH), Ciudad de México, Mexico
e-mail: srangel@cieco.unam.mx
I. Torres-García
Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores (ENES) Morelia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
México (UNAM), Morelia, Mexico
e-mail: itorresg@enesmorelia.unam.mx
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
A. Casas, J. J. Blancas Vázquez (eds.), Ethnobotany of the Mountain Regions of Mexico,
Ethnobotany of Mountain Regions, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77089-5_2-1
1

is the most complete database with ethnobotanical information in Mexico, whose
construction started nearly 40 years ago. It was a pioneer effort to systematize
biocultural information in this country, which has continued until now and has
stored nearly 60,000 records on plants used and managed by different cultural
groups in different ecosystems of Mexico. It includes information on nearly 7823
useful plant species, which is approximately one-third of the total native vascular
flora of the country. Through different approaches, it is estimated that the real
number could be more than 11,500 species, which gives an idea of the effort still
required to complete the inventory; in addition, the current inventory has informa-
tion from numerous Mestizo people communities, but only 32 of the 68 main
linguistic groups of Mexico; not all the states of Mexico have been studied, and
ethnobotanical research has concentrated in one-half of the states composing Mex-
ico. All this information indicates that although BADEPLAM is probably the oldest
project of biocultural informatics in Latin America, there is a long way to complete
the task of inventorying the ethnobotanical knowledge of the country. BADEPLAM
has records for 4222 medicinal plant species, 2265 ornamental, 2051 edible, 1974
used as fodder, and 975 for fuelwood, among other uses. Most species (nearly 64%)
are wild and weedy plants collected from forests, mainly tropical dry forests (1995
species), tropical rain forests (1928 species), temperate forests (1440 species) and
xerophytic vegetation (1361 species), grasslands, and agricultural areas. However,
nearly 3000 species are managed through one or more forms, some of them showing
incipient or intermediate signs of domestication. Nearly 500 species are fully
domesticated crops, approximately one-half of them (251 species) being native to
the Mesoamerican region. Plant families contributing with the highest richness of
useful plants are Fabaceae (752 species), Asteraceae (727), Poaceae (476),
Cactaceae (474), Euphorbiaceae (233), Malvaceae (198), and Solanaceae (195).
Associated with BADEPLAM, several research groups have articulated our work
coordinating different approaches to generate inventories of knowledge, manage-
ment techniques, and different forms of interactions between people and plants.
These inventories have been performed at rural community (more than 150 commu-
nities) and regional levels (17 main biocultural regions of Mexico) feeding the
database while constructing different theoretical frameworks on traditional classifi-
cation and worldviews, use, management and domestication, and bases for sustain-
able use of plants and ecosystems. Several approaches have enhanced our studies,
but plant management and domestication have been some of the most important
issues. We understand that management is a crucial expression of interactions
between people and plants, reflecting their knowledge and worldviews, and it is a
topic that allows connecting ethnobotany with social, cultural, and economic themes,
B. Farfán-Heredia
Universidad Intercultural indígena de Michoacán (UIIM), Pátzcuaro, Mexico
A. Casas (*)
Instituto de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas y Sustentabilidad (IIES), Universidad Nacional
Autónoma de México (UNAM), Morelia, Mexico
e-mail: acasas@iies.unam.mx
2 J. Caballero et al.

as well as with socio-ecological bases for sustainable management and studies on
evolution of plants through domestication at populations and landscape levels. In
this chapter, we show general insights of the research approaches developed by our
teams. Most of our studies have been conducted in mountainous regions since
Mexico is an eminent mountainous country. Therefore, this text provides general
perspectives of the ethnobotanical knowledge of Mexico, as well as methodological
approaches that are helpful to contextualize the entire volume of this book.
Mexico and the Mesoamerican region in the neighboring countries of Central
America is one of the areas with the highest biocultural diversity of the world (Maffi
2005; Toledo and Barrera-Bassols 2008; Boege 2008). This region includes more
than 300 native languages (284 only in Mexico, according to Ethnologue; Eberhard
et al. 2022) and more than 39,300 species of vascular plants (Hanelt 2001), which is
nearly one-third of the flora of the Americas (Ulloa et al. 2017), as well as a high
diversity of vertebrate and arthropod species. Such diversity has a notable expression
in the ethnobiological knowledge and the systems of management and domestication
of plants, animals, mushrooms, and microorganisms, as well as the regional ecosys-
tems, their components and functions, and landscapes. As recently reported by
Clement et al. (2021), nearly 6500 native plant species of Mexico and the Meso-
american area, belonging to 265 families, have been recorded to have one or more
uses by the Indigenous cultures and other rural people of the region. Among the main
families providing plant resources are Fabaceae (699 species), Asteraceae (571),
Cactaceae (438), Poaceae (335), Euphorbiaceae (205), Malvaceae (171), Solanaceae
(162), Rubiaceae (159), Asparagaceae (143), Apocynaceae (133), and Lamiaceae
(133). Compared with information from the Andean region of Peru and the Ama-
zonia and lowlands of Brazil, these numbers are outstanding, not only in part
because of the high biocultural diversity itself, but also in part due to the active
and long tradition of ethnobotanical research conducted in the area and, importantly,
because of the extraordinary efforts to systematize the information in databases
(Clement et al. 2021).
Most native plant species in Mexico and the Mesoamerican area are medicinal (3478
species), edible (1810), fodder (1637) and used for construction (1224) and as fuelwood
(883). Interactions between people and plants are mostly through gathering, since
nearly 6000 species are obtained this way from forests. However, 1555 species receive
some form of management: (i) tolerance or let standing of plants in areas cleared for
different purposes, (ii) enhancing or promotion actions directed to increase abundance
of desirable plants, (iii) special protection and care of plants against herbivores,
competitors, frosts, or for procuring water, shade, or sunlight, or (iv) their cultivation
by planting seeds, vegetative propagules, and/or (v) transplanting of complete individ-
uals with the purpose of cultivating or relocating them. These forms of management
may involve selection on particular phenotypes and have determined that at least
727 species have incipient signs of domestication. Other 170 species can be considered
semidomesticated, and 251 species are fully domesticated plants, with clear signs of
domestication syndrome, phenotypic divergence from wild populations, and marked
dependence on humans for survival and reproduction (Clement et al. 2021). These
native species were complemented with others introduced from different regions of the
Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Mexico: Use, Management, and... 3

Americas throughout history, and then, after European colonization, numerous wild,
weedy, and domesticated plant species from the Old World were introduced and
adopted by the human cultures of the Americas (Corona et al. 2021).
Scholars studying management and domestication of plants have recognized that
Mexico and the neighboring Mesoamerican area are one of the most ancient and
dynamic scenarios where the biocultural expressions associated to management and
domestication can be documented in the Americas (Vavilov 1992; Harlan 1975;
Hawkes 1983; Smith 2006). But also, because these are ongoing processes, studying
how and why they are initiated, maintained, and innovated may contribute to
understanding how and why these processes occurred in the past.
The region called Mesoamerica was originally proposed by Paul Kirchhoff
(1943) as a cultural area with special features that distinguish it from other regions
of the Americas. According to Kirchhoff (1943), Matos-Moctezuma (1994), and
others, in Mesoamerica flourished human cultures with distinctive settlements and
buildings, agricultural systems and techniques, food patterns, and numerous other
cultural aspects compared with the neighboring northern arid region of Mexico,
called Aridoamerica, and other cultures further North America, as well as those of
the Andean, Amazonian, or Patagonian regions in South America. The human
cultural features considered by Kirchhoff (1943) have been partly confirmed or
refuted by several archaeological and anthropological studies conducted for decades
in the region and the whole American Continent. However, the term continues being
used and it is still a helpful reference to studies of both cultural and biological
diversity.
According to Matos-Moctezuma (1994), the Mesoamerican region comprised the
southern half of Mexico until the north-western area of the current Costa Rica, but he
and other authors have discussed the dynamic limits of this region throughout time.
In addition, it is pertinent to say that cultural elements and products of the regional
biodiversity from the Aridoamerica and from South America arrived at Mesoamerica
continually since prehistory (MacNeish 1967,1992; Piperno and Pearsall 1993;
López-Austin and López-Luján 2002; Clement et al. 2021; Corona et al. 2021).
This illustrates that the frontiers, if these really existed, were not only dynamic but
also with high porosity. The early presence of maize in the Andean region (Piperno
and Pearsall 1993; Clement et al. 2021) and the ancient presence of cacao
(Theobroma cacao L.), manioc (Manihot esculenta Crantz), peanuts (Arachis hypo-
gaea L.), sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam.), and other South American crops
in Mesoamerica are indicators of the antiquity and intensity of technological inter-
actions and interchange of crop species and varieties among regions (Pease et al.
2016; Zarrillo et al. 2018; Kistler et al. 2020; Corona et al. 2021). Archaeological
remains and ethnohistorical sources, as well as studies from anthropology, ecology,
population genetics, phylogeography, and genomic approaches, have been progres-
sively clarifying the biocultural history of the region and will continue doing it with
new research tools and approaches. The information available now appears to
suggest that the discontinuities proposed by Vavilov and other scholars among the
biocultural regions are hypothetical and deserve more research to be confirmed or
modified. In this chapter, we will summarize information of the ethnobotanical
4 J. Caballero et al.

knowledge documented among peoples from the Mesoamerican and Aridoamerican
regions of Mexico, including the current scenario of native and introduced species
that became adopted by human cultures occupying the area of what is currently
known as Mexico. This is part of the information that requires to be analyzed to
contribute to reconstructing the biocultural history of the area.
Cultures of the Mexican Mesoamerica started developing techniques to manage
biotic resources and ecosystems that led to early domestication of plants and food
production systems, approximately 9000–10,000 years ago (MacNeish 1967,1992;
Benz 2006; Smith 1997; Piperno et al. 2009) and have continued doing it until the
present (Casas et al. 1997,2017; Parra et al. 2010; Clement et al. 2021). Cultures of
Aridoamerica, apparently, adopted in some areas these experiences of management
and domestication and initiated their own processes (Nabhan 1985). Different
practices like gathering, interchange of products, and incipient management and
domestication have been reconstructed based on archaeological information and
strongly supported by ethnobotanical and ethnographic studies of how current
cultures perform activities that configure these processes (Alcorn 1984; Zizumbo
and Colunga 1982; Casas et al. 1994,1996,1997; Blancas et al. 2010; Rangel-Landa
et al. 2016). In addition, since much of these practices are still carried out, important
details about the perception of variation, targets of selection, mechanisms to put it in
practice, and their evolutionary consequences can be documented through ethnobi-
ological, ecological, and evolutionary biology approaches (Casas et al. 1997,2007;
Blancas et al. 2010,2013; Aguirre-Dugua et al. 2012,2013,2018; Rangel-Landa
et al. 2016; Moreira et al. 2017; Clement et al. 2021; Arévalo-Marín et al. 2021).
Although the current social and ecological contexts are different to those occurring
in the past, the current processes are valuable empirical bases that can be used as
models to understand the motivations that enhanced people to manage plants in the
past and ways that could have operated (Casas et al. 1997,2007; Parra-Rondinel
et al. 2021; Rangel-Landa et al. 2016; Clement et al. 2021; Arévalo-Marín et al.
2021). Our research groups have conducted studies on plant management and
domestication in several regions of Mexico, in different ecological contexts, differ-
ent cultural groups, and different groups of plants, including annual herbaceous,
shrubby, small trees, agaves, cacti, and long-lived perennials. These studies could
provide information and theoretical frameworks to support an interpretation of what
happened in the past.
Our groups have systematized ethnobotanical information for the whole Mexican
territory for nearly 40 years, through the Base de Datos Etnobotánicos de Plantas
Mexicanas (BADEPLAM, Database of Ethnobotanical Information of Mexican
Plants, in English), of the Botanical Garden at the Institute of Biology, UNAM.
Both the database and field studies in ethnobotany, ecology, and evolutionary
biology related to management and domestication allow identifying general patterns
of the processes analyzed and how and why these are currently occurring. The
information generated is now being useful not only to analyze plant management
in Mexico, but also may be helpful to our colleagues working in the Amazonian and
Andean regions, which are exceptional areas related to the human culture of plant
management. Our research groups started their work with the coordination by the
Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Mexico: Use, Management, and... 5

first author of this chapter and then developed their own profiles but maintained most
of the original purposes, among them, to: (1) systematize the ethnobotanical infor-
mation generated among peoples and plants of Mexico, (2) analyze the information
on uses, management, traditional nomenclature and classification, habitats, and
ecological information of plants Mexican cultures interact with, (3) identify general
patterns on the groups of plants mostly incorporated in human subsistence by
cultural groups of Mexico, (4) identify the factors motivating people to practice
plant management, the different types of practices, and those involving processes of
domestication, (5) develop views on sustainable management of nontimber forest
products at population and ecosystem levels, (6) document the general trends of
morpho-physiological, reproductive, and genetic changes in plants associated to
domestication, (7) analyze how landscape domestication influences domestication
processes on particular species and vice versa, and (8) analyze how different
evolutionary forces operate to influence domestication.
To address these issues, our research groups have combined ethnobiological, eco-
logical, and evolutionary approaches. Our ethnobotanical studies have inventoried the
diversity of forms of use and management of plants, and we have systematized our own
research, as well as that published in the scientific literature and that registered in
herbarium specimens. Those are the basic sources of information stored in
BADEPLAM. In the field, we have worked in these inventories at community and
regional levels, while the information of BADEPLAM allows a general panorama of the
state of ethnobotanical knowledge for the whole country. During decades, most ethno-
botanical studies in Mexico have emphasized collecting information on use of plants;
therefore, since the 1990s our research has emphasized studying cultural, ecological, and
evolutionary aspects related to plant management. We have documented the diversity of
plant management forms in forests (silviculture), agricultural systems (horticulture and
agriculture), agroforestry systems (agro-silviculture), and livestock-raising systems
(plant management associated with pastoralism, free raising of goats and cattle, and
agro-silvo-pastoralism). These studies look for understanding the different management
techniques and the social and ecological factors motivating and influencing the way the
management practices are, more particularly, how the need to ensure the availability of
desirable products, esthetic purposes, curiosity, and other factors move people’s inven-
tiveness, their interest in innovation, how they transmit their experiences to others, and
how they adopt techniques developed by others. We are especially interested in
understanding why and how these mechanisms enhance decision-making, as well as
the consequences of management and domestication on different sociocultural, ecolog-
ical, and evolutionary aspects. These are topics that could help to analyze how domes-
tication and food production started and changed the human ways of life and, also, to the
understanding of current processes of technological innovation, adoption, and diffusion
in traditional rural contexts.
After the “Origins of Species”(Darwin 1859), by the end of the nineteenth and
throughout the twentieth centuries, several studies explored the areas of origin of
their domestication. Among the most outstanding works are those by De Candolle
(1882) and Vavilov (1992), who collected information from botanical, geographical,
anthropological, linguistic, ecological, and genetic fields to suggest some regions of
6 J. Caballero et al.

the world that were supposed to be the areas of origin of cultivated plants. The
regions proposed were valuable hypotheses that led archaeologists to investigate
remains to test the suppositions and to support information about the process of
domestication of the most important crops. Then, after several classic archaeological
and genetic studies appeared the proposals by Harlan (1975), Bruce Smith (1989,
2006), Zeder (2008,2011,2012,2015,2017), and other scholars that have had
important dissertations about the origins and causes of domestication of plants and
animals, which are still in debate, particularly about the questions of where, when,
how, and why management and domestication started and developed. Periods of
scarcity of resources associated with climate change or demographic growth of
humans determining pressures on ecosystems are among some of the explanations,
while for other authors environmental pressures and technological innovation should
be integrally analyzed (Flannery 1986; Harris and Hillman 1989; Harris 1996).
The research groups of the authors of this chapter consider that both management
and domestication of plants are ongoing processes and, therefore, studying and
understanding them provide elements to analyze the past, with reasonable bases
for the interpretation of archaeological data. Looking for answers to the general
questions referred to in the previous paragraph has therefore theoretical value,
particularly in relation to how knowledge, management, and domestication of plants
interact with social-cultural needs and the ecological conditions of the organisms
used to satisfy them, as well as in relation to evolutionary-ecology issues. Manage-
ment and domestication of plants and the systems where these are performed
progressively configured a valuable biocultural heritage of the Mexican cultures
from both Mesoamerican and Aridoamerican regions. This heritage is now a valu-
able experience to contribute to construct a general repertoire and catalogue of
management techniques that are highly important to understand the past, but, at
present, to construct strategies of sustainable management that several sectors of
Mexico are interested in.
Our research groups have conducted studies in more than 150 communities (see
Appendix 1, Fig. 1)ofCh’ol, Cuicatec, Ixcatec, Lacandon, Mazatec, Mixtec, Mayan
groups, Mazahua, Nahua, Popoloca, P’urhépecha, Rarámuri, Huastec or Teenek,
Tlapanec, Tlahuica, Zapotec, and mestizo people in different regions of México
(Fig. 1, see Caballero 1994; Caballero and Mapes 1985; Caballero et al. 1998;
Caballero and Cortés 2001; Mapes et al. 1981,1996,1997; Casas et al. 1994,
2001,2007,2014,2017; Pérez-Negrón and Casas 2007; Camou-Guerrero et al.
2008; Lira et al. 2009; Blancas et al. 2010,2013; Cano et al. 2012; Torres 2004;
Torres-García et al. 2013,2015a,b,2019,2020; Martínez-Ballesté et al. 2005,2006;
Bunge-Vivier and Martínez-Ballesté 2017; Cuevas et al. 2021; Lotero-Velásquez
et al. 2022; Farfán et al. 2007, 2018a,b; Ubiergo-Corvalán et al. 2019,2020,2021).
We have promoted similar research with colleagues of the Andean region
(Velásquez-Milla et al. 2011; Torres-Guevara et al. 2019; Pancorbo et al. 2020;
Parra-Rondinel et al. 2021) and the Brazilian lowlands, especially the Caatinga
(Lucena et al. 2014, 2016, 2017; Lins Neto et al. 2014; Trindade et al. 2015;
Lima-Nascimento et al. 2021), Amazonia, and Mata Atlantica (Clement et al.
2021). One of the first attempts to show systematized ethnobotanical information
Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Mexico: Use, Management, and... 7

on use and management in these regions was recently published (Clement et al.
2021) through a process of interaction involving conceptual and methodological
interchange, looking for constructing databases with similar format compatible for
further analyses and comparisons. In this process, we also started to include the
information available for the neighboring Mesoamerican region of Central America.
These activities are configuring a new stage in the systematization process that will
require several years of effort while local and regional studies must continue,
especially in those cultural and ecological areas with scarce or no studies available.
Research Strategy
BADEPLAM
The initiative of constructing BADEPLAM started in 1982 as part of an institutional
project at the Botanical Garden of the Institute of Biology, UNAM. The work was
initiated by designing the format of the database in a time when the technological
Fig. 1 Regions of Mexico where the more than 150 rural communities studied by our research
groups are located. From north to south, Peninsula of Baja California, Sierra Tarahumara,
Cuatrociénegas Valley, Huasteca, Northern Sierra of Puebla, Mountains of Northern Michoacán,
Morelia Region, Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, Pátzcuaro Lake Basin, Tierra Caliente of
Michoacán, Highlands of the state of Morelos, Balsas River Basin of the state of Morelos and
Guerrero, Mountain of Guerrero, Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley, Central Valleys of Oaxaca, Highlands
of Chiapas, and Yucatán Peninsula. See details in Appendix 1
8 J. Caballero et al.

tools for storing information were still limited and the personal computers were
restricted. In fact, the earliest systems established failed to recover the stored
information, and the format and storing system had to change from time to time. It
was until the 1990s when BADEPLAM became more operative and dynamic for
storing and providing services. In the first stage of construction, BADEPLAM had
the name of Banco de Información Etnobotánica sobre Recursos Genéticos
(BIERGEN). It was part of an ambitious project to integrate the Botanical Garden
at UNAM as part of a research unit called Unidad de Recursos Genéticos
(UNIRGEN), which was conceived and enhanced by Dr. José Sarukhán, who was
the director of the Institute of Biology, and who some years later founded the
National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO),
the most important governmental institution in Mexico systematizing information on
biodiversity.
The project UNIRGEN started with the collaboration of several scholars, and
BIERGEN was the main responsibility of the first author of this chapter (Javier
Caballero). UNIRGEN aspired to carry out multidisciplinary work, in which ethno-
botany was considered to be the direct source of information from the field about
genetic resources for food and other purposes, emphasizing the documentation of
information about management and domestication by different ethnic groups of
Mexico. The project aspired to know the diversity of genetic resources, mainly
used as food, and identify some of them with high potential to attend problems in
Mexico. The general team of UNIRGEN included ethnobotanists, geneticists, tax-
onomists, and plant physiologists specialized in in vitro propagation (Caballero
1984; Caballero et al. 1985).
The starting group of ethnobotanists was formed by Cristina Mapes, José Arellano,
Javier Caballero, and Robert Bye, who conducted regional studies in the Isthmus of
Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, the P’urhépecha region of Michoacán, the Yucatán Peninsula, and
the Sierra Tarahumara, respectively. Later, Carmen Vázquez, Juan Luis Viveros, and
Alejandro Casas were included in the team, investigating in different areas of the Balsas
River Basin region and then in the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley, in addition the group of
Miguel Angel Martínez-Alfaro, Francisco Basurto, and Alberto Villa in the Sierra Norte
of the state of Puebla. Their regional approach included fieldwork, bibliographic
compilation of inventories of useful plants, as well as studies on some plant groups
(Amaranthaceae, Arecaceae, Fabaceae, and Solanaceae, among others) which were
followed more deeply by collecting information from herbarium specimens at MEXU.
The database was designed and coordinated by Javier Caballero and implemented
by a mathematician (Juan Antonio Toledo), and a biologist (Laura Cortés), who
captured and curated the entries of information. Juan Toledo elaborated an algorithm
in algol language, which allowed the following: (1) loading all programs to manage
the database, (2) uniting text files captured in a PC for “5/4 floppy disks”which were
then carried to a terminal of the supercomputer Burroughs B-7800, and (3) storing
the files in magnetic tapes for later use through the database program. The ethnobo-
tanical information was coded, and a dictionary of translated information was used.
Such complex systems and processes made it difficult to manage the database and
obtain results. The database included different fields which were discussed and carefully
Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Mexico: Use, Management, and... 9

selected by the team of ethnobotanists. The information systematized included taxo-
nomic information (plant family, species, subspecies, and other intraspecific categories),
ecological information of the specimens recorded (location, vegetation type, elevation,
climate, and soil), and the use and management types, among the most important.
In the 1990s, each field of information was reanalyzed, which allowed decreasing
the previous huge structure of the database, adjusting it to the real information
captured until that time, when information of important ethnobotanical works was
already collected. Among the studies whose information was then captured, we
counted those by Alcorn (1984) with the Huastec, Berlin, Breedlove, and Raven
(1974) with the Tzeltal, several works by Maximino Martínez for the whole country
(Martínez 1959,1979,1989), Felger and Moser (1985) with the Seri, Barrera-Marín
et al. (1976) with the Maya, Pennington (1963) and Bye (1976) with the Tarahumara,
and Pennington (1969) with the Tepehuan, among others, as well as information of
useful species of the families Fabaceae, Arecaceae, and Amaranthaceae, among
others, several theses by students and collaborators of the project, and other
unpublished works. Another important decision was to change the name BIERGEN
into Base de Datos Etnobotánicos de Plantas Mexicanas (BADEPLAM).
BADEPLAM is an application created and developed by Laura Cortés in Access
2016 Microsoft, Office. At present it has 59,487 records, from a total of 361 biblio-
graphic sources of information, as well as information from herbaria and data from
field studies by our research groups and others. It is a database with good curatorial
work, with tables of relational reference which complement and help to minimize
capture errors. There is in addition a good collection of works that are being
captured. An aspect in progress is the restructuring of BADEPLAM according to
international standards. Although it is important to maintain an original version of
the information captured, it is continually necessary adjusting and updating taxo-
nomic nomenclature and content of the information fields, which should be widely
reviewed by ethnobotanists, taxonomists, geographers, and anthropologists with
experience in bioinformatics. But importantly, the changes should not increase the
basic structure of BADEPLAM but adjust some pertinent underlying concepts in the
information fields.
BADEPLAM is currently coordinated by Dr. Andrea Martínez-Ballesté who is
also responsible of managing and using the information. The use has lacked specific
operative rules, but these should be constructed in the near future to prevent misuse
and misappropriation of information.
BADEPLAM was a pioneer project in biodiversity informatics, with the vision of
being a source of valuable information on nontimber forest products for academic
and conservation programs. The experience has been adopted by several research
groups, some of them have allowed the correct compatibility to feed the main
database and strengthen its capacities, and this should be a process to enhance ahead.
10 J. Caballero et al.

Field Studies
Our field studies have included regional and communitarian scales, including three
main dimensions: one of them sociocultural, in which the main approach is ethno-
biology and ethnobotany. It has been directed to inventory and document cultural
information on plants, their economic value, and mechanisms of interchange at local
and regional levels, the regulations existing in communities, municipalities, and
regions, among other topics. The second dimension is ecological. In part, not only
we have analyzed the consequences of management on individuals, populations,
biotic communities, and ecosystems, but also we have studied the influence of these
aspects on the decision of people to manage populations, communities, and ecosys-
tems. The third dimension is directed to analyze evolutionary processes associated
with management, including domestication (Fig. 2).
The ethnobiological studies look for understanding the cultural bases of use and
management of plants, and we aspire to complement them with social research on
institutions regulating access to resources; these regulations and commercialization
of products in markets reflect the importance of resources to people.
Ecological studies have had in principle the purpose of documenting the distri-
bution and abundance of the most important plant resources, their diversity, biomass,
and spatial and seasonal availability (Pérez-Negrón and Casas 2007; Blancas et al.
2013; Rangel-Landa et al. 2016). This information diagnosed in the vegetation types
and anthropogenic areas of communitarian territories allows identifying possible use
Fig. 2 Processes studied by our research groups. In the intersection of these processes, the
management of plants is a main issue of our research, which expresses knowledge, practices, and
worldviews of people on plants they interact with. Management is influenced by the sociocultural
context, including social and economic relations, forms of social organization and regulations
constructed about the interactions among households and other communities and among these
social units and the environment, and the technological aspects available for the interaction, among
other relevant issues. In addition, management is markedly influenced by the contexts of ecosys-
tems where it occurs, and in turn the management influences and drives changes in ecosystems, their
components, and functions. Management influences evolutionary processes through domestication,
which in turn is influenced by the natural evolutionary processes occurring in plant populations
Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Mexico: Use, Management, and... 11

patterns that may endanger the permanence of particular plant populations. But in
addition, it allows documenting the ecological complementarity of the environmen-
tal units in people’s subsistence (Lotero-Velásquez et al. 2022). Also, ecological
studies allow identifying the biotic interactions (pollinators, seed dispersers, facili-
tation, and other mutualist interactions) that should be maintained when planning use
of forest products (Casas et al. 1999; Otero-Arnaiz et al. 2003; Torres-García et al.
2013,2015a; León-Jacinto and Torres 2015; Rangel-Landa et al. 2015; Cuevas et al.
2021). Therefore, ecological studies together with ethnobotanical information allow
constructing proposals on sustainable management at the community assemblages in
territories.
Another important approach developed by our research groups has been
conducted at the population level. We have worked with populations of species
particularly endangered or that may be endangered due to human activities. From
this perspective, we have studied species of palms (Sabal spp. and Brahea dulcis
(Kunth) Mart.; Martínez-Ballesté et al. 2005,2006,2008; Martínez-Ballesté and
Martorell 2015; Martínez-Ballesté and Caballero 2016; Pulido and Caballero 2006;
Rangel-Landa et al. 2014), several species of Agave (Torres-García et al. 2013,
2015a,2019,2020) mainly those extracted from forests to produce mescal, as well
as some trees intensively used in some communities (Ceiba aesculifolia (Kunth)
Britten & Baker f., by Arellanes et al. 2018) and Bursera bipinnata (Moc. & Sessé ex
DC.) Engl. by Abad-Fitz et al. 2020). We are interested in documenting the effect of
management on survival and reproduction of individuals that are under management
and the populations they form part of. This information aspires to identify thresholds
that are able to maintain or collapse the populations used and, therefore, develop
ecological criteria to define sustainable rates of harvesting the useful products.
These studies allow identifying how ecological processes influence plant man-
agement and the impact of management on ecosystems (Blancas et al. 2013).
Through these studies, we explore hypotheses related to the influence of the scarcity
or uncertain availability of resources of high cultural value on the people’s decisions
to manage them. But in addition, the information allows analyzing the conditions for
sustainable management at population and community levels. From this approach,
aspects such as life form, length of life cycle, part or parts used, the type of
reproduction system, distribution, abundance, and phenology are all relevant issues.
The third dimension of our research is studying evolutionary processes associated
with management: domestication, which involves adjustments in morphology and
physiology of plants according to human purposes. Domesticates commonly diverge
from wild and weedy plants, whose fitness is high in those environments while
domesticates are successful in managed environments only through human assis-
tance. Divergence between wild or weedy and the domesticates is not binary but may
include a continuous of intermediate conditions, depending on the purposes of
humans and the level of intensity of human selection (Casas et al. 1996,1997,
2007). It is not unidirectional since multiple features, not only one, may motivate
humans to practice selection. And complete domestication is not the unique destiny
of management. In Mexico, hundreds of plants remain in a state of low divergence
with respect to their wild or weedy relatives and may remain in that state for a long
12 J. Caballero et al.

time since with that intensity of management and selection the desired actual
sociocultural benefits are obtained.
At ecosystem level, we are particularly interested in how the management of
populations or groups of populations influence changes at landscape level. And, in
turn, how changes deliberately performed at landscape level influence changes of
plant populations (Casas et al. 1997; Parra et al. 2015; Clement et al. 2021).
Ethnobotanical Diversity of Mexico
México harbors a high biocultural diversity, and this is especially expressed in the
ethnobotanical knowledge. The Mexican territory is inhabited by Indigenous peo-
ples representing diverse cultures that speak nearly 291 languages (Eberhard et al.
2022). According to Ethnologue 284 are Indigenous languages, 84 are developing,
74 are vigorous, 88 are in trouble, 44 are dying, and 6 languages are extinct
(Eberhard et al. 2022). The existing languages are catalogued by the Instituto
Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas (INALI 2008) in 68 linguistic groups, each one
with different linguistic variants that totalize the 284 Indigenous languages referred
to above. It has been estimated that after the European invasion and conquest, nearly
one half of languages became extinct because of wars, diseases, and extermination of
a high percentage of people living in this country. All those cultures were configured
for thousands of years. The recent discoveries of Ardelean et al. (2020) in the
Chiquihuite Cave at the state of Zacatecas reveal that humans have been present in
the territory that currently is Mexico since about 25,000 and possibly around
30,000 years ago. The diversity of flora is also high, the inventory of the native
vascular plants, according to Villaseñor (2016), is 23,314 species, and according to
Toledo and Ordóñez (1993), the native and introduced flora occurring in Mexico is
nearly 30,000 species. And this is the setting of biocultural processes that molded
what ethnobotanists working in Mexico have documented since the early twentieth
century.
The most recent information from BADEPLAM indicates that peoples of Mexico
interact, know, use, and manage nearly 7823 plant species. This is an inventory
documented among 32 of the 68 main linguistic groups of Mexico. Table 1indicates
the number of records by cultural group, which in turn indicates that nearly half of
the cultural groups have been studied, some of them scarcely, and those with no
ethnobotanical records would be one of the priorities to enhance studies about.
Table 2shows the number of ethnobotanical records by state, indicating that most
studies have been conducted in the states of Puebla, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Chiapas, and
others that are bioculturally diverse, whereas more efforts are required in the states of
Querétaro, Colima, Baja California, and Zacatecas, among others. Similarly, Fig. 6
indicates tropical and temperate forests are the most studied vegetation types,
whereas the xerophytic vegetation, grasslands, and cloud forests require more
research effort.
Figures 3,4, and 5show a general panorama of the inventory of use types, plant
families, and life forms providing more plant resources, respectively. Figure 6shows
Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Mexico: Use, Management, and... 13

the general panorama of vegetation types providing useful plant species. Figure 7
shows a panorama of the types of plant management recorded while Fig. 8shows the
panorama of the types of interaction in the main groups of plants under management:
edible and medicinal plants.
However, information from regional studies suggests that the inventory in
BADEPLAM could be substantially increased, especially when the total flora is
compared with the flora reported with use. For instance, in the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán
Table 1 Ethnic groups and
the number of records about
use and management of
plants in BADEPLAM.
(Records are the references
found in the different
sources of information
(literature reference,
collection number referred
to in documents or
herbarium specimens))
Ethnic group Number of records
Maya 4356
Tarahumara 1918
Náhuatl 1824
Teenek 1572
Totonaco 1432
Mixteco 1144
Mayo (yoremes) 1084
Zoque 1046
Seri 1007
Zapoteco 892
Tzotzil 859
Otomí 847
Tzeltal 669
Chinanteco 484
Cuicateco 464
Ixcateco 372
Guarijío 324
Chontal (Tabasco) 309
Purépecha 284
Tepehuanes 258
Lacandón 181
Kikapú 168
Tepehuanes (Durango) 168
Mazateco 166
Mazahua 154
Mixe 138
Popoluca 111
Pápago 83
Huave 79
Chol 74
Pima 20
Cora 8
Huicholes 8
Mestizos (in Spanish) 35,378
Others 1606
14 J. Caballero et al.

Valley we have found that while the total flora is about 3000 plant species, the useful
plants is nearly 2000 plant species (Casas et al. 2017), which is nearly 60% of the
whole flora. Similar comparisons in other regions allow estimating that on average
about 38.9% of the plant species in a region have one or more uses (Table 3), which
compared with the general inventory of native vascular plant species in Mexico, and
23,314 species according to Villaseñor (2016) would lead to expect 9069 useful
native plant species. However, considering both native and introduced species,
according to Toledo and Ordóñez (1993) nearly 30,000 plant species, in Mexico,
Table 2 Number of
records about use and
management of plants per
state in BADEPLAM.
(Records are the references
found in the different
sources of information
(literature reference,
collection number referred
to in documents or
herbarium specimens))
State Number of records
Puebla 10,575
Veracruz 4848
Oaxaca 4544
Chiapas 3332
Nuevo León 3025
Quintana Roo 2622
Morelos 2621
Chihuahua 2530
Guerrero 2374
Sonora 2305
Yucatán 2186
San Luis Potosí 1914
México City 1745
Hidalgo 1676
Michoacán 1597
Tabasco 1549
State of México 1463
Tamaulipas 1381
Guanajuato 905
Coahuila 826
Sinaloa 782
Aguascalientes 617
Nayarit 582
Campeche 474
Jalisco 425
Durango 382
Tlaxcala 305
Zacatecas 248
Baja California 163
Baja California Sur 156
Colima 154
Querétaro 79
Total 58,385
Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Mexico: Use, Management, and... 15

the estimation allows expecting 11,670 useful plant species, native and non-native,
disseminated throughout the Mexican territory.
Through another approach, based on the number of species accumulated in the
sources consulted for constructing BADEPLAM, and projecting the number of
species that could potentially be included in the database, the curve of Fig. 9was
obtained. This approach suggests that the number of useful species in Mexico
Fig. 3 Number of plant species used with different purposes by the different cultures of Mexico
according to the Base de Datos Etnobotánicos de Plantas Mexicanas BADEPLAM of the Botanical
Garden, Institute of Biology, UNAM
Fig. 4 The plant families providing more useful species in Mexico, according to BADEPLAM
16 J. Caballero et al.

could be about 11,500, a number similar to the estimation referred to above, which
is reasonable since BADEPLAM stores information on native and non-native
species.
Fig. 5 Life forms of the plant species used in Mexico by peoples of different cultures according to
the Base de Datos Etnobotánicos de México BADEPLAM of the Botanical Garden, Institute of
Biology, UNAM
Fig. 6 Vegetation types providing the highest richness of useful plants
Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Mexico: Use, Management, and... 17

Diversity of Management Forms
Different authors have proposed that food production like horticulture, agriculture,
and pastoralism arose as strategies to decrease uncertainty in the availability of food
and other products (Flannery 1986; Harris 1996). However, for thousands of years,
and even at present, the rural communities continue practicing gathering and
Fig. 8 Number of medicinal and edible species that are collected in the wild, managed incipiently,
and those that are cultivated. (Information from the Base de Datos Etnobotánicos de Plantas
Mexicanas BADEPLAM of the Botanical Garden at the Instituto de Biología, UNAM)
Fig. 7 Number of species under different management types. The category incipient-management
includes 570 species tolerated or let standing, 417 plant species promoted or enhanced, and
186 species under special protection by local people, according to the management categories by
BADEPLAM
18 J. Caballero et al.

Table 3 Total number of plant species recorded in different regions of Mexico, compared with the
general plant species richness recorded in those regions
Region Total spp. Useful spp. %
Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley
a
>3000 >2000 66.7
Sierra de Manantlán
b,c
2983 650 21.8
Sierra Norte de Puebla
d
1730 720 41.6
Selva Lacandona
e
1660 415 24.9
Los Tuxtlas
f
2697 730 27.1
Tuxtepec
e
737 296 40.2
Uxpanapa
e
800 336 40.6
Península de Yucatán
g
2900 1000 23.4
Sian Ka’an
e
558 316 56.6
Montaña de Guerrero
h
800 430 53.8
Huastec region
i
1113 445 40.0
Sierra Huichola
a
1652 532 32.2
Sierra del Abra Tanchipa
j
427 116 27.2
Sierra de Huautla
k
1018 649 63.8
Tierra Caliente de Michoacán
l
2634 616 23.4
Average (%) 38.9
Mexico (native) 23,314 9139
Mexico (native and introduced) 30,000 11,760
a
Based on Casas et al. (2017, updated in this study);
b
Santana-Michel and CONABIO (2021);
c
Benz
et al. (1994);
d
Martínez-Alfaro et al. (1995);
e
Toledo et al. (1995);
f
CONANP/SEMARNAT (2006);
g
Flores (1999);
h
Casas et al. (1994);
i
Alcorn (1984);
j
De-Nova et al. (2019);
k
Blancas et al. (2022);
l
Rangel-Landa et al. (2022).
Fig. 9 Estimation of the useful flora of Mexico based on the cumulative records of information
sources and its projection. (According to data from BADEPLAM)
Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Mexico: Use, Management, and... 19

extraction of forest products, including gathering of plants, hunting, and fishing
together with agriculture livestock and horticulture in homegardens and other
systems. Gathering, according to Casas et al. (1996,1997), González-Insuasti and
Caballero (2007), Blancas et al. (2010), Rangel-Landa et al. (2016), and Farfán et al.
(2018a,b) may vary in complexity in the management strategies, differential invest-
ment of energy, complexity of tools, social agreements, and involving human
selection with different levels of intensity and other evolutionary forces associated
to management. It may be systematic, circumstantial, at random or following a plan,
manual or involving tools and machines, generalist, or selective. For all these
reasons, gathering should be considered a form of management.
Currently, numerous plant resources are under management forms that are neither
gathering nor agriculture, and that we have considered as “incipient”since they are
less complex than agriculture (Casas et al. 1996,1997,2007,2017; Clement et al.
2021). Among these management forms, the strategies of systematic, planned, and
selective forms of gathering should be included, also, the tolerance of desirable
plants when disturbing forests or when practicing weeding. It is also the case of
induction or enhancement of abundance of desirable plants by sowing seeds, plating
their vegetative propagules, or transplanting complete individuals, and also, the
cases of plants protected through special ways to ensure their survival and repro-
duction as referred to above, including those from the wild, introduced deliberately
to anthropogenic areas.
All these forms of management are under different levels of intensity, and such
intensity is related to the balance between the cultural and/or economic value, on the
one hand, and their availability, on the other, which is commonly influenced by
distribution, abundance, seasonal availability of products, vulnerability before
interannual climate changes, pests, and natural or human-caused catastrophes, among
other ecological aspects (Blancas et al. 2010,2013; Rangel-Landa et al. 2016,2017;
Farfán et al. 2018a,b). Also, these are related to the resilience of individuals, commu-
nities, and ecosystems affected by human actions to use their products, depending on
the plant part used and other biological aspects of the plants related to life cycle
duration, reproductive systems, among others. Considering all these variables, it is
possible to appreciate that plants used and managed by humans are under a continuous
gradient of cultural/economic motivation of use, and ecological/biological aspects
determining risk to ensure the availability of their products. Therefore, the management
intensity is also expected to have a continuous expression of states.
Through studies in different communities of the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley
(González-Insuasti and Caballero 2007; González-Insuasti et al. 2008,2011;Blancas
et al. 2013;Lariosetal.2013; Rangel-Landa et al. 2016,2017), we analyzed the
spectrum of forms and intensity of management of plants, mainly edible and orna-
mental plants in different rural communities. These studies show the broad spectrum of
conditions of risk to ensure their availability, their relation to multiple ecological and
social factors, and the responses to such risk. Likewise, the high relationship between
risk conditions through the intensity of driving is highlighted.
20 J. Caballero et al.

Diversity of Domestication Processes
Domestication is a consequence of management. Not all plants managed are domes-
ticated nor eventually become domesticated, but all domesticated plants involve
management. Through domestication, humans adjust forms, functions, and behavior
of organisms according to human context (material and immaterial needs, values,
esthetic purposes, and curiosities). Among the most important needs are food, most
domesticated plants are edible, and humans select favoring quantity (e.g., number,
size) and quality (flavor, color, texture, general aspect, and qualities associated with
preparation, among others) of the edible products. Most commonly, humans select in
favor of several attributes of one or several plant traits, the processes producing a
high diversification of the domesticated species. In addition to selection, people may
drive gene flow and manipulate the reproduction system of plants and determine
contexts for the propitious action of other evolutionary forces like inbreeding and
genetic drift in small populations, bottleneck, and founder effects. The mechanisms
and criteria associated with domestication are profusely linked to human culture;
therefore, domestication is a biocultural expression. It is therefore important to
document in studies of domestication the diversity of life forms of organisms
under domestication, the diversity of attributes that people distinguish and value,
and the diversity of mechanisms through which phenotypes are favored or unfavored
and the action of other evolutionary forces.
Domestication is an evolutionary process and therefore involves diversification.
Darwin (1859) analyzed this process and adopted it in the first chapter of the
“Origins of species”as a model to explain the origin of species in nature though
developing the concept of natural selection. Domestication maintains and continu-
ally develops new varieties and in addition includes variation developed in different
biocultural contexts through interchange of techniques, seeds and other propagules.
It is a continuous process and therefore currently observable, which offers the
possibility to document how it operates and provides to evolutionary biology and
archaeology bases for interpreting what has happened in the natural evolutionary
processes and ancient human-guided domestication. Through documenting domes-
tication, it has been possible to describe and the broad spectrum of forms of plant
management and ways through which human selection operates. This information is
extraordinarily helpful to establish bases for sustainable management of genetic
resources, particularly, to design strategies of in situ conservation.
We have hypothesized that higher management intensity has caused higher
divergence between managed and unmanaged organisms. Therefore, the silvicultural
management is expected to determine lower differentiation with respect to wild
populations than horticultural or agricultural management. For testing such hypoth-
eses, we conducted several case studies. In all cases, we documented how variation
in populations is perceived by people, how they value the variations and if they
manage it differently. Ethnobotanical studies make possible documenting these
aspects, as well as the mechanisms through which such variation is managed. The
next step is evaluating the divergences (morphological, physiological, reproductive,
and genetic) and to test or reject the hypothesis. And we have analyzed all these
Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Mexico: Use, Management, and... 21

aspects in annual plants, including some quelites like quintoniles Amaranthus spp.
(Mapes et al. 1996,1997), “alaches”(Anoda cristata (L.) Schltdl.), “chipiles”
(Crotalaria pumila Ortega), some trees like “guajes”(Leucaena esculenta (Moc.
& Sessé ex DC.) Benth; Casas et al. 1997,2007; Casas and Caballero 1996; Zárate
et al. 2005), tempesquistle (Sideroxylon palmeri (Rose) T.D.Penn.; González-
Soberanis and Casas 2004), and Ceiba aesculifolia (Kunth) Britten & Baker
f. (Avendaño et al. 2006,2009; Arellanes et al. 2013, 2018), which are widely
appreciated and commercialized in the Tehuacán Valley and Oaxaca. All these trees
are important since remains of them were found by archaeologists associated with
humans in strata from prehistoric times of the Tehuacán Valley (Smith 1967).
Other important trees that we have studied are the gourd trees Crescentia alata
Kunth and C. cujete L. (Aguirre-Dugua et al. 2012,2013,2018) and the guava
Psidium guajava L. (Arévalo-Marín et al. 2021). These and some columnar cacti
species of the genus Stenocereus have allowed exploring questions related to the origin
and diffusion of their domestication. We have found that C. alata appears to be native
to Mexico, and its domestication has occurred inseveral areas of the territory. C. cujete
has both native and introduced populations, but those with the clearest signs of
domestication are genetically differentiated from the native populations, even where
they coexist. We have not identified the area where these genotypes originated, but we
have hypothesized that most probably such an area is in Central America, somewhere
in Honduras or Nicaragua (Aguirre-Dugua et al. 2012,2018; Moreira et al. 2017). The
case of guava is a different story. Phylogenetic studies suggest that the genus Psidium
originated and diversified in South America, and Psidium guajava is also from South
America. It is a species with life history traits that make it able to spread and colonize
wide areas. Arévalo-Marín et al. (2021) hypothesized several scenarios of its origin
and diffusion, and one of the most probable is that the species arrived to Mexico
thousands of years before the occupation of the territory by humans. However, the
archaeological evidence indicates that the oldest remains are in South America, and its
presence in Mesoamerica is relatively late. There are still several questions that are
analyzed to clarify events of diffusion and domestications, and as in the cases of
Crescentia, the phylogeographic approaches are particularly helpful. It is early to
arrive at conclusions about this story, but the methodological approaches provided
by molecular genetics, ecology, ethnohistory, and archaeology are keystones to recon-
struct the natural and biocultural history of these species. The case of Stenocereus
involved the analysis of a complex of related species grouped in the Stenocereus
griseus (Haw.) Buxb. complex. Our study started exploring the origin and diffusion of
S.pruinosus(Otto ex Pfeiff.) Buxb, a clearly domesticated species in central Mexico
but with a wide distribution in Mexico. We soon found that what was identified as
Stenocereus pruinosus were several species, including S. griseus.However,afterafirst
step of our research we found that S. griseus is a South American species and that what
was considered to be this species in Mexico was a well-differentiated new species,
which was named Stenocereus huastecorum Alvarado-Sizzo, Arreola-Nava, and
Terrazas (2018).
We have centered our attention in two additional systems: agaves and columnar
cacti. In the case of agaves, we have documented the forest management of several
22 J. Caballero et al.

wild populations (Agave potatorum Zucc., A. cupreata Trel. & A. Berger, and
A. inaequidens K. Koch, A. angustifolia Haw.; Casarrubias-Hernández 2019;
Delgado-Lemus et al. 2014; Illsley et al. 2018; Torres-García et al. 2013,2015a,b,
2020) and states and changes associated to domestication in some of them and others
(Agave inaequidens,A. hookeri Jacobi, A. salmiana Otto ex Salm-Dyck,
A. mapisaga Trel., and A. americana; L. Colunga-GarcíaMarín et al. 2017;
Figueredo-Urbina et al. 2017,2018; Álvarez-Ríos et al. 2020). Studies of forest
management have included the documentation of current rates of extraction, the
effect of demand on it, and the effect of it on population dynamics and population
genetics. In all cases, we have identified that the increasing demand of mescal has
caused the extirpation of numerous populations of the target species. The extraction
of adult individuals occurs just before producing flowers which cancel the sexual
reproduction, the only form of reproduction in part of the species studied
(A. potatorum,A. cupreata, and A. inaequidens). This fact directly affects the
recovering capacity of the populations, which become extirpated progressively as
the remaining individuals reach the extraction stage (Torres-García et al. 2015a,
2019). Some individuals escape to the extraction, but there is an effect density-
dependent influencing the visits of bats to flowers to cause pollination. Several
studies have identified that at least 30% of individuals at reproductive stage should
be maintained in a population to allow pollinators visiting flowers; below such
threshold, bats rarely visit a population (Torres-García et al. 2013). Species that
produce vegetative propagules are able to recover their populations but reducing
genetic diversity and therefore increasing their vulnerability to several factors.
Several demographic models developed by our research group have identified the
stages whose maintenance and growth are crucial for ensuring an appropriate growth
population rate. These aspects may vary from population to population and among
species. But proposals for actions have been possible. In all cases, ensuring polli-
nation is crucial for preventing loss of genetic diversity, and in some species like
Agave potatorum facilitation interactions with some species of shrubs are equally
important to ensure the establishing of seedlings (Rangel-Landa et al. 2015). Studies
on domestication were conducted documenting morphological, genetic, and phyto-
chemical (saponin content) divergence between wild and domesticated populations,
as specified for the general research strategy. In the case of Agave hookeri, the wild
relative is unknown, but we performed a comparison with wild and domesticated
populations of A. inaequidens, which has been proposed to be the wild relative
(Figueredo-Urbina et al. 2015,2017,2018). In the case of A. americana, the study is
still in progress, the wild subspecies (A. americana subsp. protoamericana) is being
compared with the domesticated subspecies (A. americana subsp. americana), and
divergences between varieties of the latter subspecies are being analyzed. Something
similar was performed with varieties of A. salmiana,A. americana, and A. mapisaga
whose varieties are managed together, some of them possibly being hybrids (Álva-
rez-Ríos et al. 2020).
The system that has been studied with more detail is that of the columnar cacti,
which are important plant resources in several regions of Mexico. This system
allows analyzing in one region several species in a gradient of management intensity.
Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Mexico: Use, Management, and... 23

We have characterized such intensity in relation to the energy invested in managing
plant populations versus the productivity of the managed system. This balance is
influenced by the viability of management, which is very much influenced by the
growth rate of the plants and the viability of managing vegetative propagules.
Species like Escontria chiotilla (F.A.C. Weber ex K. Schum.) Rose and Polaskia
chende (Rol.-Goss) (A.C. Gibson & K.E. Horak) have slow growth and are difficult
to cultivate; others like Cephalocereus tetetzo (F.A.C. Weber ex J.M. Coult.) Diguet
and Pachycereus weberi (J.K. Coult.) (Backeb) produce tasty fruits, seeds, and
flower buds very much appreciated by people, but their growth is even slower than
E. chiotilla. These species are let standing, protected, or transplanted (young plants)
in agroforestry systems. Other species like Stenocereus pruinosus, S. stellatus
Riccob., Lemaireocereus hollianus (F.A.C. Weber ex J.M. Coult.), and Britton &
Rose are intensively cultivated in homegardens, live fences, and borders of agricul-
tural plots. These species grow faster, and selection is easier than in the other species
mentioned, and they show clear signs of domestication (Casas et al. 2007; Parra et al.
2010; Rodríguez-Arévalo et al. 2006).
Studies of population genetics through neutral markers have showed that genetic
differences among populations with different management are irrelevant. Further
studies with markers associated to traits could be more informative in this respect.
For the moment, it has been found that silvicultural managed and cultivated
populations have less genetic variation than wild populations, a pattern generally
expected. However, in cultivated populations of Stenocereus stellatus,S. pruinosus,
and in some cultivated agaves, we found higher genetic variation than in the wild.
This is an interesting pattern that we have discussed considering the high gene flow
among wild and managed populations, as well as the active movement of propagules
from different communities and regions, carried out by people. To analyze this
pattern, we have explored the provenance of materials from silvicultural managed
and cultivated populations through interviews and molecular markers (Parra et al.
2010,2012; Cruse-Sanders et al. 2013); this information allows identifying wild and
managed populations that are sources of cultivated material within the territory of a
community or among regions (the Tehuacan Valley and La Mixteca Baja region).
These data illustrate the great capacity of traditional people to continually introduce
and replace diversity in their management systems, and their crucial role in conserv-
ing and increasing the diversity these contain.
Perspectives
Our studies have documented different types of interactions between people and
plants in Mexico. These interactions are motivated by the cultural value of the
products used by people, as well as their ecological attributes and biological features
that make viable or not their management. Use, management, and ecological knowl-
edge are closely interconnected, and therefore their systematization is extraordinarily
important to document the current state of biocultural diversity and for designing
innovations based on what we currently know. In addition, these data and relations
24 J. Caballero et al.

have high importance to construct and test hypotheses about the past processes that
motivated people to manage plants.
Documenting and systematizing ethnobotanical knowledge continues to be an
important task. This is especially necessary among human cultures and ecosystems
poorly or not studied, as identified in this diagnosis. Field work efforts are important
in relation to plant use, but studies of management require to be emphasized,
especially in relation to factors motivating management, innovation techniques,
and domestication. The current state of information allows visualizing that there
are hundreds of case studies yet to be analyzed to understand the context and patterns
of management and efforts to catalogue the management techniques.
It is important to mention that nowadays numerous scholars have worked in local
or regional databases throughout the country, and the National Commission for the
Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO) has enhanced an important project
for systematizing the information on use and management of biodiversity. The effort
by CONABIO dedicated to document and systematize information from a project on
agrobiodiversity is outstanding. All these efforts spread throughout the country
could be coordinated and shared. It requires leading institutions and clear rules to
operate, but such a project is possible and necessary.
Analyzing ecological and evolutionary consequences of management is a rele-
vant avenue of research, the first one to develop strategies of sustainable manage-
ment of forest and agroforestry systems, the second to understand the evolution of
managed plants, and both related with cultural and social changes associated with
it. Morphometric, physiological, reproductive systems and population genetics are
important tools to analyze them, and the new methods related to the genomic
approaches are extraordinary opportunities to clarify the history of the processes.
Now it is also relevant to consider the inter-scalar influence of domestication at
population and landscape levels, and such influence should be studied in depth.
The collaboration of ethnobotanists using similar methods for studying different
regions and cultural groups is relevant to produce comparable data to identify
general biocultural patterns and contributing to construct theoretical frameworks.
In addition, the complexity of the biocultural and social-ecological issues related to
ethnobotany should enhance ethnobotanists to carry out interdisciplinary research,
while the bridge that ethnobotanical research may construct between traditional
ecological knowledge and the academy and other sectors indicates the extraordinary
role ethnobotany may play to construct transdisciplinary approaches for constructing
sustainability science.
Acknowledgments The authors thank the Instituto de Biología, IIES and ENES-Morelia, UNAM,
the CIBYC at the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, the UIIM-Michoacán and
CONACYT for support through the program Investigadoras e Investigadores por México, and
financial support to the project A1S-14306. Also, we thank support from the GEF Project ID 9380
CONABIO-GEF-FAO/RG023 “Manejo y domesticación de agrobiodiversidad en Mesoamérica:
Bases para la soberanía alimentaria sustentable,”and PAPIT, UNAM (project IN206520).
Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Mexico: Use, Management, and... 25

Appendix 1
Communities, regions, and cultural groups where our research groups have
conducted studies, which are referred to in maps of Fig. 1.
Communities Region State Municipality Ethnic groups
Comondú Baja California
Península
Baja
California
Sur
Comondú Mestizo
El Pescadero Baja California
Península
Baja
California
Sur
Los Cabos Mestizo
La Purísima Baja California
Península
Baja
California
Sur
Comondú Mestizo
Mulegé Baja California
Península
Baja
California
Sur
Mulegé Mestizo
San Ignacio Baja California
Península
Baja
California
Sur
Mulegé Mestizo
San Isidro Baja California
Península
Baja
California
Sur
Comondú Mestizo
San Javier Baja California
Península
Baja
California
Sur
Comondú Mestizo
Santa Gertrudis Baja California
Península
Baja
California
Sur
San Quintín Mestizo
Todos Santos Baja California
Península
Baja
California
Sur
La Paz Mestizo
Lacanjá
Chansayab
Montes Azules Chiapas Bonampak Lacandón
Tumbalá North mountains Chiapas Tumbalá Ch’ol
Ejido Cuiteco Tarahumara
mountains
Chihuahua Urique Raramuri
Antiguos Mineros
del Norte
Cuatrociénegas
Valley
Coahuila Cuatrociénegas Mestizo
Boquillas Cuatrociénegas
Valley
Coahuila Cuatrociénegas Mestizo
La Vega Cuatrociénegas
Valley
Coahuila Cuatrociénegas Mestizo
San Lorenzo Cuatrociénegas
Valley
Coahuila Cuatrociénegas Mestizo
Xichú Sierra Gorda Guanajuato Xichú Mestizo
Axaxacualco Balsas basin Guerrero Eduardo Neri Nahuatl
(continued)
26 J. Caballero et al.

Communities Region State Municipality Ethnic groups
San José
Huitziltepec
Balsas basin Guerrero Eduardo Neri Nahuatl
Acateyahualco Mountain Guerrero Ahuacuotzingo Náhuatl/
Mestizo
Agua Zarca Mountain Guerrero Ahuacuotzingo Náhuatl/
Mestizo
Alcozauca Mountain Guerrero Alcozauca Mixtec/Mestizo
Amapilca Mountain Guerrero Alcozauca Mixtec/Mestizo
Chilapa Mountain Guerrero Chilapa Náhuatl/
Mestizo
Copanatoyac Mountain Guerrero Copanatoyac Mixtec
Huamuxtitlán Mountain Guerrero Huamuxtitlán Náhuatl/
Mestizo
Ixcuinatoyac Mountain Guerrero Alcozauca Mixtec
Olinalá Mountain Guerrero Olinalá Náhuatl
San José Laguna Mountain Guerrero Alcozauca Mixtec
Tecolcuautla Mountain Guerrero Ahuacuotzingo Náhuatl
Tehuitzingo
(Tlahuitzingo)
Mountain Guerrero Olinalá Náhuatl
Tlapa Mountain Guerrero Tlapa Náhuatl,
Mixtec,
Tlapanec
Trapiche Viejo Mountain Guerrero Chilapa Náhuatl/
Mestizo
Xocoyolzintla Mountain Guerrero Ahuacuotzingo Náhuatl
San Miguel
Xicalco
Southeast of
Mexico City
Mexico
city
Tlalpan Mestizo
Cañada del Agua Basin Cuitzeo Michoacan Indaparapeo Mestizo
Pino Real Basin Cuitzeo Michoacan Charo Mestizo
Real de
Otzumatlán
Basin Cuitzeo Michoacan Queréndaro Mestizo
Rio de Parras Basin Cuitzeo Michoacan Queréndaro Mestizo
Cuanajo Lake Patzcuaro
region
Michoacan Pátzcuaro Purhepechas
Icuacato Lake Patzcuaro
region
Michoacan Quiroga Mestizo
Barranca del
Aguacate
Lerma-Chapala
region
Michoacan Sahuayo Mestizo
El Chocolate Tierra Caliente
region
Michoacan Churumuco Mestizo
Ichamio Tierra Caliente
region
Michoacan La Huacana Mestizo
Francisco Serrato Zitacuaro region Michoacan Zitácuaro Mazahua
Erongarícuaro Lake Patzcuaro
region
Michoacán Erongarícuaro Purhépecha
Zitácuaro Monarca region Michoacán Zitácuaro Mazahua/
Mestizo
(continued)
Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Mexico: Use, Management, and... 27

Communities Region State Municipality Ethnic groups
Undameo Morelia Michoacán Morelia Mestizo
Pichátaro Purhépecha region Michoacán Pichátaro Purhépecha
Infiernillo Tierra Caliente
region
Michoacán Infiernillo Mestizo
Pitirera Tierra Caliente
region
Michoacán Infiernillo Mestizo
Chalcatzingo Balsas basin Morelos Jantetelco Mestizo
Cuautla Balsas basin Morelos Cuautla Mestizo
Cuernavaca Balsas basin Morelos Cuernavaca Mestizo
Ejido Los Sauces Balsas basin Morelos Tepalcingo Mestizo
El Limón de
Cuauhchichinola
Balsas basin Morelos Tepalcingo Mestizo
El Zapote Balsas basin Morelos Puente de Ixtla Mestizo
Jojutla Balsas basin Morelos Jojutla Mestizo
Palpan de Baranda Balsas basin Morelos Miacatlán Mestizo
Tepalcingo Balsas basin Morelos Tepalcingo Mestizo
Tres Marías Balsas basin Morelos Huitzilac Nahuatl,
Mestizo
Coajomulco Highlands of the
state of Morelos
Morelos Huitzilac Nahuatl,
Mestizo
Huitzilac Highlands of the
state of Morelos
Morelos Huitzilac Nahuatl,
Mestizo
Tepoztlán Highlands of the
state of Morelos
Morelos Tepoztlán Nahuatl,
Mestizo
Tlayacapan Highlands of the
state of Morelos
Morelos Tlayacapan Nahuatl
Totolapan Highlands of the
state of Morelos
Morelos Totolapan Nahuatl
Cuilapam de
Guerrero
Central valleys of
oaxaca
Oaxaca Cuilapam de
Guerrero
Zapoteco-
Mixteco-
Mestizo
Coyula Cuicatlán valley Oaxaca Cuicatlán Cuicatec/
Mestizo
Cuicatlán Cuicatlán valley Oaxaca Cuicatlán Mestizo/
Cuicatec
Dominguillo Cuicatlán valley Oaxaca Cuicatlán Mestizo
Ixcatlán Cuicatlán valley Oaxaca Ixcatlán Ixcatec
Jocotipac Cuicatlán valley Oaxaca Jocotipac Mixtec
Nodón Cuicatlán valley Oaxaca Cuicatlán Mixtec
Quiotepec Cuicatlán valley Oaxaca Cuicatlán Mestizo/
Cuicatec
San Lorenzo
Pápalo
Cuicatlán valley Oaxaca Cuicatlán Cuicatec
Tecomavaca Cuicatlán valley Oaxaca Tecomavaca Nahuatl/
Mazatec/
Mestizo
(continued)
28 J. Caballero et al.

Communities Region State Municipality Ethnic groups
Santa Catalina
Chinango
Low Mixteca Oaxaca Tequixtepec Mixtec
Tequixtepec Low Mixteca Oaxaca Tequixtepec Mixtec
Tonaguia Sierra de Juarez
(north region)
Oaxaca Santo Domingo
Roayaga
Mixe
El Campanario Sierra Sur Oaxaca Putla Villa de
Guerrero
San Juan de Los
Cúes
Tehuacán valley Oaxaca Teotitlán Nahuatl/
Mazatec/
Mestizo
Teotitlán del
Camino
Tehuacán valley Oaxaca Teotitlán Nahuatl/
Mazatec/
Mestizo
Chazumba Low Mixteca Puebla Chazumba Mixtec
Acateno Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Acateno Nahuatl
Ahuacatlán Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Ahuacatlán Nahuatl
Ayotoxco de
Guerrero
Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Ayotoxco de
Guerrero
Nahuatl
Chignahuapan Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Chignahuapan Nahuatl
Cuetzalan Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Cuetzalan Nahuatl
Francisco
Z. Mena
Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Francisco
Z. Mena
Nahuatl
Huachinango Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Huachinango Nahuatl
Huehuetla Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Huehuetla Nahuatl
Hueyapan Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Hueyapan Nahuatl
Hueytamalco Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Hueytamalco Nahuatl
Jonotla Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Jonotla Nahuatl
Libres Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Libres Nahuatl
Naupan Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Naupan Nahuatl
Nauzontla Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Nauzontla Nahuatl
Olintla Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Olintla Nahuatl
Pahuatlan Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Pahuatlan Nahuatl
(continued)
Ethnobotanical Knowledge in Mexico: Use, Management, and... 29

Communities Region State Municipality Ethnic groups
Tepecintla Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Tepecintla Nahuatl
Teziutlan Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Teziutlan Nahuatl
Tlatlauquitepec Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Tlatlauquitepec Nahuatl
Tuzamapan de
Galeana
Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Tuzamapan de
Galeana
Nahuatl
Tzinacapan Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Cuetzalan Nahuatl
Venustianao
Carranza
Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Venustianao
Carranza
Nahuatl
Xicotepec Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Xicotepec Nahuatl
Xochitlan de
Vicente Suárez
Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Xochitlán de
Vicente Suarez
Nahuatl
Zacapoaxtla Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Zacapoaxtla Nahuatl
Zacatlán Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Zacatlán Nahuatl
Zapotitlán de
Méndez
Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Zapotitlán de
Méndez
Nahuatl
Zautla Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Zautla Nahuatl
Zongoxotla Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Zongoxotla Nahuatl
Zoquiapan Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Zoquiapan Nahuatl
Caxalli Sierra Negra Puebla Coyomeapan Nahuatl
Matlahuacala Sierra Negra Puebla Coyomeapan Nahuatl
San Gabriel Vista
Hermosa
Sierra Negra Puebla Coyomeapan Nahuatl
San Marcos
Tlatlalkilotl
Sierra Negra Puebla Coyomeapan Nahuatl
Santa María
Coyomeapan
Sierra Negra Puebla Coyomeapan Nahuatl
Xochitlalpa Sierra Negra Puebla Coyomeapan Nahuatl
Ahuatla Sierra Negra Puebla Coyomeapan Nahuatl
Ajalpan Tehuacan valley Puebla Ajalpan Nahuatl/
Mestizo
Aticpac Sierra Negra Puebla Coyomeapan Nahuatl
Caltepec Tehuacan valley Puebla Caltepec Mestizo
Chilac Tehuacan valley Puebla Tehuacán Nahuatl/
Mestizo
Chimalhuaca Sierra Negra Puebla Coyomeapan Nahuatl
Coatepec Tehuacan valley Puebla Caltepec Nahuatl/
Mestizo
(continued)
30 J. Caballero et al.

Communities Region State Municipality Ethnic groups
Coxcatlán Tehuacan valley Puebla Coxcatlán Nahuatl/
Mestizo
Guadalupe
Victoria
Tehuacan valley Puebla Coxcatlán Mestizo
Ixtacxochitla Sierra Negra Puebla Zoquitlan Nahuatl
Reyes Metzontla Tehuacan valley Puebla Zapotitlán Popoloca/
Mestizo
San Juan Raya Tehuacan valley Puebla Zapotitlán Mestizo
San Luis
Atolotitlán
Tehuacan valley Puebla Caltepec Mestizos
San Nicolás
Tepoxtitlán
Tehuacan valley Puebla Atexcal Mestizo/
Nahuatl
San Rafael Tehuacan valley Puebla Tilapa Mestizo
Santiago Tilapa Tehuacan valley Puebla Tilapa Nahuatl/
Mestizo
Tehuacán Tehuacan valley Puebla Tehuacán Mestizo
Yohuajca Sierra Negra Puebla Coyomeapan Nahuatl
Zapotitlán Salinas Tehuacan valley Puebla Zapotitlán Mixtec/
Popoloca/
Mestizo
Zinacatepec Tehuacan valley Puebla Zinacatepec Nahuatl/
Mestizo
Zoquitlán Sierra Negra Puebla Zoquitlán Nahuatl
Acaxochitlan Northern sierra of
Puebla
Puebla Acaxochitlan Nahuatl
Xkon Ha Yucatan Península Quintana
Roo
Felipe Carrillo
Puerto
Maya
Wirikuta (Las
Margaritas ejido)
Altiplano region San Luis
Potosí
Real de Catorce Mestizo,
Wixarika
Aquismón Huasteca San Luis
Potosí
Aquismón Huastec
Tancuime Huasteca San Luis
Potosí
Aquismón Huastec
El Rosario North region Tlaxcala Tlaxco Mestizo
San Isidro Buen
Suceso
South region Tlaxcala San Pablo del
Monte
Nahua
Maxcanú Yucatán Península Yucatán Maxcanú Maya
Sucilá Yucatán Península Yucatán Sucilá Maya
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