Data shown in this study were collected in different periods from 1986–1992 (Table 1). For this particular study, I show data collected through interviews, based on questionnaires. The procedures employed included visiting each house or family in each community, interviewing the resident couple. Interviewers included fisher residents, part-time and full time fishers, who comprehended the majority of the populations of the communities: islands of Búzios and Vitoria, and communities of Casa de Farinha, Puruba, Picinguaba, and Sertão do Puruba (Ubatuba district) (Figure 1). Questions asked in interviews, associated with this study, included place of born, earlier local of residence, and economic activities (Table 1). As already mentioned, there is published data on the Caiçaras, and the procedures in this study refer especially to the concepts and models used to analyze such data.
Ecological concepts
Living in fragmented landscapes, such as the Atlantic Forest remnants, the Caiçaras of the SE Atlantic Forest are subject to processes of migration that seem to be relevant for their own survival. Ecological concepts, such as
metapopulation and
resilience are used in this study. Metapopulations are sets of subdivided populations ('populations of populations'), and much theory is credited to the classical publications by R. Levins in the seventies [
32,
33].
The understanding of the Caiçara as a metapopulation could help in the understanding of cultural exchanges due to local migration processes, which represents a source of cultural variation and of cultural diversity. Migration is a key point to the concept of metapopulation dynamics, since their persistence depends on the rate of dispersal among patches [34]. In this regard, the migration among the Caiçara populations should play an important role in their metapopulation dynamics. Populations are a central concern in evolution as they suffer the consequences of gene flow and of cultural trait diffusion. Models of coevolution of genes and culture have shown the population-level consequences in the diffusion of cultural traits [35]. Populations are the most basic unit of biodiversity dynamics [36] and, in case of local native populations, cultural influences are part of their dynamics, which are locally important but flow also regionally.
Metapopulation processes can be also associated to habitat change and to anthropic fragmentation of habitats. Therefore, it is a useful tool for biodiversity conservation, since predictions of fragmented landscapes depend upon analysis of the flow that occurs among the populations dispersed in the landscape. The metapopulation approach takes into consideration the fact that ecological processes occur in the local population and at metapopulation scales [32]. The sets of populations of Caiçaras, fragmented in the Atlantic Forest remnants, may be examples of human metapopulations, taking into account both genetic (through intermarriages) and cultural flows (between individuals and populations).
Resilience is the other ecological concept that might help thinking in the historical-ecological dynamic processes of the Caiçaras. The theory of adaptive cycles [37] is a tool to analyze resilience, including the processes of exploitation (rapid colonization), conservation (slow accumulation), release (creative destruction), and reorganization (minimal loss). There are three dimensions of the adaptive cycle: potential for change (potential productivity and social or cultural potential, such as networks), connectedness (strength of internal connections that regulate internal processes and control external variability), and resilience (capacity of a system to experience disturbance and still maintain functions and controls) [38]. Resilience is the ability of societies to adapt to externally imposed changes [39], and there are examples of resilience analysis for large institutions, such as bureaucracies and industries in the literature [40]. For small-scale fishing communities in Brazil there are studies of the ecological and social resilience, including adaptive cycles, in the lagoon fishery of Ibiraquera, southern Brazil [41]. In the context of Caiçaras, such concepts help in understanding their historical process of change and adaptation, and in formulating hypotheses regarding possible outcomes.
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