Folk Taxonomy of the Inter- and Intraspecific Edible Plant Diversity of Huastec Mayan Farmers in Mexico

Understanding how Indigenous people classify their edible plants enriches current knowledge of food crop diversity. The Huastec Mayan or Tenek people in Mexico manage a highly diverse food biota. The aim of this study was to describe and analyze their nomenclature and taxonomy of edible plants in their agroecosystem. We determined descriptor types for the terminal taxa of the different ethnobiological categories. As a novel approach, contrasting descriptors of terminal taxa that represent inter- or intraspecific diversity were analyzed separately. The descriptors, expressed in the names and labels of 347 terminal taxa managed by the Tenek, were grouped into descriptor sets. The average number of folk descriptor types that farmers use to distinguish inter- and intraspecific diversity is 1.82 (SD 0.88) and 2.78 (SD 1.68), respectively. A comparison with data from a previous study illustrates how the incorporation of additional species and variants into the Tenek farming systems leads to more specification in naming and, thus, to changes in classification. Our results lead to three main postulates: (1) Tenek people have a deep and specific knowledge about their edible plant diversity; (2) a high correspondence exists between folk taxonomy and Linnaean taxonomy; and (3) to distinguish inter- and intraspecific diversity, they use a practical and minimalistic classification system. The information provided here can be used as a basis for future agrobiodiversity inventories in the study region (called Huasteca Potosina) and other Indigenous regions in the tropics and subtropics.