In recent years there have been several attempts to examine Ethnobiology from an evolutionary perspective. I discuss several potential sources of confusion in applying Evolutionary concepts to Ethnobiology. Ethnobiological discussions of evolution have focused more on changes in human populations, or on human impacts upon plants used by humans for a variety of purposes, than on the processes typically emphasized in discussions by biologists studying evolution. There has been little acknowledgment of how the field of biological evolution is changing in the 21st Century. In this article I focus on recent developments in evolutionary thinking that could be effectively integrated into Ethnobiological concepts. These include: 1) The increased importance of individual organisms in understanding both population dynamics and microevolutionary change (i.e. natural selection). This change in focus creates the potential for incorporating understandings from Indigenous people who recognize a different set of dynamics that govern how both plant and animal populations are regulated, leading to new insights into how conservation practices should be enacted; 2) Niche Construction, which is a 21st century concept that argues that organisms shape their own environments and those of other species. This approach creates a new way of looking at how Natural Selection can act upon a wide range of organisms; and finally, 3) Reticulate Evolution, in which different species exchange genetic material as a result of behavioral or physiological interactions with major evolutionary consequences. These concepts relate strongly to fundamental Indigenous conceptions of ecosystem functioning, including the ideas that All Things are Connected and that All Life Forms are Related. I argue that Ethnobiology and Indigenous Knowledge are strongest in dealing with phenomena linked to behavior and ecology, which are fields being neglected by many contemporary molecular approaches to understanding evolution. Attempts to deal with Conservation in a world subject to climate change would be greatly improved by working closely with Indigenous peoples and incorporating concepts from these traditions into practices on a global scale.

中文翻译：

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民族生物学与进化之间的历史联系：冲突和可能的解决方案。

近年来，从进化的角度进行了许多研究民族生物学的尝试。我讨论了将进化概念应用到民族生物学中的几种潜在的混乱根源。关于进化的人种生物学讨论，更多地关注人口的变化，或人类对人类用于多种目的的植物的影响，而不是生物学家研究进化论时通常强调的过程。人们对二十一世纪生物进化领域的变化知之甚少。在本文中，我重点介绍进化思维的最新发展，这些发展可以有效地整合到人类生物学概念中。其中包括：1）个体有机体在了解种群动态和微观进化变化中的重要性日益提高（即 自然选择）。重点的改变为整合土著人民的认识创造了潜力，土著人民认识到控制动植物种群如何调控的另一套动力，从而导致对如何制定保护做法的新见解；2）生态位建设（Niche Construction），这是21世纪的一个概念，认为生物体可以塑造自己的环境以及其他物种的环境。这种方法为研究自然选择如何作用于多种生物提供了一种新方法。最后，3）网状进化，其中不同物种通过行为或生理相互作用而交换遗传物质，并具有重大的进化结果。这些概念与生态系统功能的基本土著概念密切相关，包括“万物互联，万物皆有生命”的观念。我认为，民族生物学和土著知识在处理与行为和生态相关的现象方面最强，这是许多当代理解进化的分子方法所忽略的领域。通过与土著人民紧密合作并将这些传统的概念纳入全球范围的实践，将大大改善在遭受气候变化影响的世界中应对自然保护的尝试。