Combining Ethnography and Spatial Sciences to Investigate the Modern Effects of People-Plant Relationships Over Time and Space

Open Access
- Author:
- Ernst, Sydney
- Area of Honors:
- Anthropology
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Arts
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Rebecca Bliege Bird, Thesis Supervisor
Douglas Bird, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- human ecology
anthropology
cultural anthropology
GIS
ethnography - Abstract:
- The purpose of this research project is to investigate how the presence of human beings and the activities they partake in may influence the distribution of vegetation within an ecosystem. Specifically, this project takes a look at a possible relationship between the prescribed burning techniques of the Martu Aboriginal people of Australia and the plant communities which grow in the Western Desert. Researching how anthropogenic hunting fires may interact with the spinifex grasses and woody Acacia species that are native to this region provides a glimpse into the bigger question of people-plant relationships. This investigative effort holds importance because there is currently no quantitative evidence available to answer these questions. To research this topic, drone imagery was analyzed on the geo-spatial software QGIS and a classification tool was used to determine the amount of landcover for three different landcover classes: shrubs, grasses, and bare ground. Once total land cover was determined, results were analyzed using a simple multivariate regression model to determine what kind of relationship, if any, plant distribution and land cover have with fire frequency and proximity to the community. Although the sample size of the data was not large enough to procure very significant results, the outcome did provide a baseline idea for these relationships. The most significant relationship found was a negative relationship between fire frequency and percent grass cover. While analysis for fire frequency was not significant when analyzed independently, distance to community was significant on its own. This study provides a good introduction for investigating this topic even further. Later in the paper, the possibility for more significant results via a similar study with higher resolution images and a larger data set is discussed.