Perspectives in theoretical and Hawaiian ethnobotany: Biocultural diversity in two cultivated plants, 'AWA (Piper methysticum G. Foster) and KALO (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott)

The discipline of ethnobotany has accumulated an abundance of data about the diversity of ecological resource-management methodologies, but has yet to do so using standard units of measure such that cross regional comparisons can be made. As a means to address this deficiency in the discipline the theoretical "Quantum Coevolution Unit" is described and defined from the perspective of quantum ethnobotany. It recognizes that the process of co-evolution occurs in many kinds of relationships and on various scales. One example of a co-evolutionary relationship is that of a plant and a culture with which it interacts. Such relationships are dynamic and ever changing. Changes over time in the links of the relationship between biological evolution and sociocultural evolution is a co-evolutionary process. A collection of QCUs for a linked plant and human population would be its "ethnobotanical population." This could be measured at various points in time to quantify the changing relationships between plants and people. These models set up a structure to discuss methodologies for quantifying co-evolutionary relationships such as are seen in the evolution of ethnobotanical populations. The co-evolving relationship between ' awa (kava---Piper methysticum) and Hawaiian culture is used as an example to illustrate this idea.;As a means to further examine the links between biodiversity and cultural diversity the biocultural diversity of kalo (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott.) in the past and the present was assessed. Kalo once held supreme importance in Hawaiian culture, but its status has declined after experiencing a decrease in cultivation, biodiversity, and associated cultural knowledge. There was no documentation of diversity at the peak of its cultural importance. Previous estimates of biodiversity lack any sense of a methodological approach. A new attempt was made to assess levels of biodiversity around the peak cultivation period. Results were then compared to current levels. Nomenclatural synonymy and extinction have presented some challenges which made standard methods for quantifying biodiversity not viable. A set of new tools was used to sort through a master list of 676 varietal names. A comparison of what is known from the nineteenth century and modern time periods makes it apparent that changes in biodiversity, varietal prominence, ethnonomenclature, and ethnotaxonomy have occurred. This paper discusses the direction of such trends, and postulates a new estimate for kalo diversity at the end of the 19th century (approximately 100 years after the assumed peak of cultivation and diversity) to be between 368-482 distinct cultivars, while only 65-73 still exist today.;In a larger perspective, taro has been transported by humans out of its natural range into new biogeographic regions due to its cultural importance, primarily as a food source. This has resulted in repeated bottlenecks and their associated genetic drift away from the parent population. Hawaiians anciently developed taro into approximately 400 culturally distinct cultivars---all of which were named and classified---making Hawai`i a diversity center in the Pacific. From the 18th to 20th centuries Hawaiian taro underwent an extinction period with loss of perhaps 85% of diversity. In this same period, immigrant cultures and researchers were bringing new cultivars as genetic founders from different regions around the Pacific and East Asia. An AFLP study of contemporary taro diversity in Hawai`i demonstrates that genetic diversity is re-expanding. This new genetic diversity opens up opportunities to both increase functional redundancy of cultural uses of taro, and to create new plant-based traditions. This study demonstrates that this has indeed taken place. The AFLP study in conjunction with an examination of the Hawaiian ethnonomenclature system of taro demonstrates that Hawaiian ethnoclassification is based on shared morphological characteristics that are not necessarily reflective of parentage or genetic relationships. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).