Knowledge of Wild Edible Plant Species: A Comparison Between Age and Gender in a Brunka Community

Wild edible plant and fungi species are invaluable resources for indigenous communities because they provide nutritional value, dietary diversity, and an opportunity for food security.  Studies suggest that increasing acculturation in some communities has resulted in the loss of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) regarding wild foods, a trend that may lead to decreased nutrition and diversity in indigenous diets.  In the Brunka indigenous communities in Costa Rica, no research has been done to assess this suggested trend of a diminishing wild food cognitive domain.  This study aimed to determine the differences in wild food knowledge among informants of varying ages and genders in Boruca, a main Brunka community. Free-listing was used as a method to evaluate to evaluate individual knowledge. A species informant curve revealed that approximately 59 species comprise the wild food cognitive domain of adults in Boruca. Our results also indicate that there is a direct linear relationship between age and number of species mentioned.