Both birds and plants are major components of the world's biocultural diversity. Salient species of both are recognized and named in virtually every language and both feature in countless ways in people's systems of knowledge, practice, and belief, as sources of food, materials, and medicines, and as ceremonial and religious symbols. However, these two major biological groups are also linked together, and their ecological associations are likewise reflected in cultural knowledge systems. In northwestern North America, there are many examples of the intersection of botanical and ornithological knowledge, reflected in people's vocabulary, narratives, belief systems, and management practices. Here we provide diverse illustrations of this intersection in cultural knowledge of plant-bird associations. These examples link together observations of bird habits and habitats with particular plant species and show how this complex integrated knowledge and experience has helped promote cultural richness and well-being for First Peoples of the region. Bird species from swans (Cygnus spp.) to hummingbirds (Trochilidae) and plants from edible root vegetables to nectar-producing flowers are exemplified as major representatives of ethnoecological connections. These relationships remind us of the importance of interspecies ties to environmental and cultural integrity—a key to sustainable living into the future.

Beliefs in bird spirits are still widely held by the Indigenous people in the Lower Murray of temperate South Australia despite an overall decline in the perceived significance of creation ancestors since British colonization in the early nineteenth century. This paper investigates these cultural beliefs in avian spirits. Birds are seen as possessing transformative powers and being mediators between human society and the invisible world. Contemporary Aboriginal people utilize their bird spirit folklore to connect with their past and to highlight their cultural distinctiveness, from both other Indigenous groups and the modern settler society. They draw upon this ornithological body of knowledge that is framed outside of Western science for cultural maintenance, education, and the re-defining of the relationships between knowledge-holders and the broader society.

There are three principal methods humans use to evoke avian vocalizations. This paper explores the two that are constrained by human language: onomatopoeia and warblish. In onomatopoeia, new words are created to mimic sounds within the constraints of a language's phonology. Warblish, named and thoroughly described for the first time in this paper, is the imitation of avian vocalizations using existing words in human language. None of the conventionalized ways humans imitate birdsong has yet been studied rigorously, least of all warblish, for which a term has not even existed. Combing the ethno-ornithological literature for instances of warblish shows patterns in its functions and semantics across cultures, which range from friendly messages to ribald mocking. Warblish may evoke perceived ties between bird calls and other natural phenomena and can even offer clues to historical contact between human communities. Investigation of methods of birdsong imitation may expose alternative folk taxonomies based on vocalization type rather than morphology. As artifacts of human creativity in response to nature, warblish and the other methods of birdsong imitation described here merit interdisciplinary inquiry.

Certain birds enable people to comprehend the inexplicable because they embody contrasts and resolve oppositions, and some birds have particular attributes that make them especially adept at expressing these symbolic meanings. This analysis focuses on two bird families that are central to the social organization of many societies in the Americas for their relationship to both life and death, and considers how these birds are able to mediate cultural oppositions expressed through the myths, rituals, art, and architecture portrayed in both ancient and contemporary cultures. Having features associated with both life and death, hummingbirds and vultures embody a duality that enables them to fly symbolically higher into the heavens and lower into the underworld than many other birds. Ethnographic examples from Mexico, Costa Rica, and Peru are used to illustrate the ways these particular birds are seen as transforming life and death by leading to a more profound understanding of reality as an ongoing cycle of rebirth and renewal.

The concept of biocultural diversity, originally used to describe indigenous people and their ways of using and managing natural resources, has more recently been applied within the urban context to understand the variability of interactions between humans and nature. Significant progress has been made internationally in acknowledging the need to preserve and maintain green spaces in urban environments. Current efforts to address the need for greening urban areas in South Africa primarily focus on the establishment and maintenance of botanical gardens and parks as well as various green belts within the urban landscape. South Africa's urban areas are overwhelmingly shaped by the historical segregation of space and stark disparities in wealth. The distribution, quality, and extent of urban green spaces reflect this. Many township dwellers do not have access to these amenities and their interactions with nature are thus usually constrained to access to municipal commonages. This article explores how areas of natural vegetation in municipal commonages on the outskirts of urban centers in South Africa continue to offer places of cultural, spiritual, and restorative importance to Xhosa-speaking township dwellers. A case study from Grahamstown, an urban center in the Eastern Cape with a population of around 80,000, illustrates how ability to access and move through such places contributes to people's well-being, identity formation, and shared heritage. A case is made for adopting a biocultural diversity approach to spatial planning and urban development within the South African context.

This article draws on concepts from social-ecological resilience and a case study conducted in Lincoln, Nebraska, USA to explore the social-ecological functions of community gardening. Through semi-structured interviews with 20 community garden participants and staff, we find that community gardening provides opportunities for participants to foster resilience to the personal, cultural, and economic challenges of displacement and resettlement resulting from urban migration. Specifically, community gardens and community gardening helped participants in our sample develop a sense of belonging and connection with cultural identity, social community, and local environment. Additionally, the process and products of growing one's own food was associated with a sense of empowerment, especially for those coping with poverty, food insecurity, and a lack of healthy, culturally appropriate foods. The practice of community gardening can cultivate resilience by serving as what we term “social-ecological refuges”—safe, restorative community places that not only enable community gardeners to reconnect with themselves, each other, and the local environment, but also function as biocultural refugia, fostering community food security by preserving and transmitting adaptive cultural and ecological memories, skills, and resources related to growing food and managing local urban environments.

In 2009, Brazil launched its National Program of Medicinal Plants and Phytotherapeutics, influenced by several international policies and agreements implemented in preceding decades. The program has sought to integrate the population's use of medicinal plants into the country's national healthcare system (O Sistema Único de Saúde, or SUS), preserve traditional populations' knowledge of medicinal plants, promote environmental conservation, and strengthen the country's pharmaceutical research sector. This program, along with other policies and federal initiatives regarding medicinal plants and traditional medicine, has affected populations within Brazil in varying ways, depending on geography, ethnicity, and other factors. The current study combines policy analysis and a total of nine months of ethnography to explore how Baixada Fluminense, a peri-urban region in the metropolitan area of Rio de Janeiro, acts as a space that presents complexities in how medicinal plant use is approached in policies. Case studies of a phytotherapeutic pharmacy and Afro-Brazilian religious groups examine how communities in the region interpret and operationalize policies about medicinal plants and traditional medicine. Research contributes to current discussions focused on defining and describing peri-urban areas in relation to ethnobiology, as well as discussions around the limits of national and international policies pertaining to medicinal plants and traditional medicine.

Urban parklands are biological and social resources. While there is a growing recognition that park users interact with these resources to promote well-being, the diversity of these practices and benefits is not fully appreciated. Here we draw upon data from a social assessment of 40 New York City (NYC) parks spanning 11,200 acres and we focus on psycho-social-spiritual benefits that are co-produced by park users and parks. Our methods include interviews (n = 1,680), field observations, and photo documentation. Given our large and diverse sample, the data show that psycho-social-spiritual engagement with parkland is important across geographic, sociocultural, religious, and other identities throughout NYC. While specific practices may be culturally differentiated, we find that urban parks support psycho-social-spiritual well-being for a wide range of people who engage in practices that reflect personal desires to connect with nature and a larger reality, as well as via a broader set of practices focused on connecting with self and with others. Our approach is novel because it integrates data on park users from interviews, observations of activities, and material evidence of prior use of parklands. We describe our findings and present a typology of psycho-social-spiritual engagement with natural areas in NYC parklands. This study advances theoretical understandings of the psycho-social-spiritual as it manifests within the dynamic relationship between humans and the urban environment, raises questions about the implications of these findings for the management of social-ecological systems, and suggests future research that delves into the practices of specific cultural and park user groups.

Archaeologists have long envisioned direct encounters between Paleoindians and megafauna of the Last Glacial-Interglacial Transition (LGIT, 15–11.5 cal BP). Debate continues regarding the role that these Paleoindian hunters played in the extinction event(s). Archaeologists, paleontologists, and paleobiologists have proposed that Paleoindians proved to be very effective hunters who employed darts and spears tipped with razor-sharp, chipped-stone projectile points. These weapons are assumed to have been capable of inflicting mortal wounds and death as a result of massive blood loss. Few archaeologists, however, have considered the possible use of hunting poisons, as well as the implications of poison use for past procurement tactics and present-day archaeological research. This paper explores the feasibility of poison hunting by Paleoindians—specifically those derived from Aconitum spp. or monkshood—as well as the possible material correlates of this technology that might be observed in the archaeological record.

A well-preserved outer coffin, several hundred years old, was discovered under waterlogged conditions in the ancient Qian Zhang Tomb located within Wuxi, an old eastern Chinese city in southern part of Jiangsu Province. Wood anatomy was employed to identify the tree species used to build this ancient outer coffin. The results showed it was constructed of sturdy Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata). In addition, gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was undertaken to examine the chemical composition of wood extract. The analysis indicates that cedrol, a sesquiterpene alcohol found in the essential oils, was the major compound of the extract and apparently a key factor responsible for the outstanding durability of this wood. A review of Chinese fir uses recorded in ancient Chinese literature is presented for historical context, along with a list of known archaeological sites that have contained remains of this conifer species in China. A hypothetical explanation for its selection as a coffin construction material by the noble family of Qian Zhang is also discussed.