Niche breadth and redundancy: Useful indices to analyze fuelwood use in rural communities

BETINA CARDOSO; ANA LADIO; MARIANA LOZADA

JOURNAL OF ARID ENVIRONMENTS

ACADEMIC PRESS LTD-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2017

0140-1963

fuelwood is still an important source of biomass required to satisfy the need for heat and cooking in many rural communities worldwide. in this work the concepts of fuel niche breadth and redundancy were used to analyse the use of fuelwood species in three rural populations in northwest patagonia. we conducted semi-structured interviews in order to estimate fuel niche breadth (fnb). for this, the variables used were: use consensus of native species, use consensus of preferred species and use consensus of pruning species. moreover, two indices were created to compare socio-environmental fuel redundancy (sefri) and economic dependence (edi) between populations. the most isolated population presented the highest values for fnb, considering principally the use consensus of native species and high environmental redundancy, while the community with most access to urban centres showed the highest fnb value for use consensus of pruning species. the third community presented intermediate values for fnb and low levels of redundancy, showing notable vulnerability. niche breadth and redundancy concepts enabled us to analyse the current state of combustible biomass use in these rural populations and their inmediate surroundings. the fuel niche breadth measured through fuelwood use and redundancy contributes to the description of socioecological contexts which are close in both geographic and cultural terms. evaluation of redundancy in terms of a resource and its different functional varieties, not focusing in particular on the functionality of the species, permits evaluating the current situation of the resource under study. The indices created in this work can also be used for other variables related to subsistence lifestyles.