The mushrooms with highest cultural significance in Ixtlan according with the EMCSI were C. cibarius s.l. and the A. caesarea complex. Other studies have demonstrated that these species have high cultural significance in other places in Mexico, even in the world. However to understand if this is a common pattern still remains uncertain and waiting for wider geographical studies.
In each sub index the species had different behaviors; still in specific universes, as edible mushrooms, people value species for many different reasons. This has enormous implications because it tells that cultural significance of organisms is a complex construction with multifactor causes.
The multivariate analysis showed hidden patterns such as species groupings and the conjunct of variables determining such arrangement; so the compound index is a powerful tool to understand the causes of the cultural significance of resources.
The low degree of correlation among our variables showed that each is an independent process influencing the cultural significance of edible mushrooms. Correlations also highlighted that the economy is a factor that could influence several other variables, thus it has to be analyzed with more detail in areas where the commercialization of resources is important.
The relative positions of species within the cultural significance gradient are more useful than their absolute values on the index, because they bring the opportunity of cross-cultural analysis if rank correlations are used to compare several species listings. This approach can also be used in intracultural studies because it is flexible and allows including or removing cultural variables to adjust it to the nature of the cultures or resources under study.
However, the method proposed have some logistical limitations, it need big samples and large questionnaires, thus it is very time consuming. An alternative for this could be to ask informants just a random sample of species from their free listings. The compound index also needs a previous and profound background of the traditional local knowledge. This can be saved performing a previous inquiry, by the interviewee's point of view, about the cultural domains locally relevant.
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