Language documentation and archives in South America

This paper addresses a set of issues related to language documentation that are not often explicitly dealt with in academic publications, yet are highly important for the development and success of this new discipline. These issues include embedding language documentation in the socio-political context not only at the community level but also at the national level, the ethical and technical challenges of digital language archives, and the importance of regional and international cooperation among documentation activities. These issues play a major role in the initiative to set up a network of regional language archives in three South American countries, which this paper reports on. Local archives for data on endangered languages have recently been set up in Iquitos (Peru), Buenos Aires (Argentina), and in various locations in Brazil. An important feature of these is that they provide fast and secure access to linguistic and cultural data for local researchers and the language communities. They also make data safer by allowing for regular update procedures within the network

Language documentation and archives in South America

This paper addresses a set of issues related to language documentation that are not often explicitly dealt with in academic publications, yet are highly important for the development and success of this new discipline. These issues include embedding language documentation in the socio-political context not only at the community level but also at the national level, the ethical and technical challenges of digital language archives, and the importance of regional and international cooperation among documentation activities. These issues play a major role in the initiative to set up a network of regional language archives in three South American countries, which this paper reports on. Local archives for data on endangered languages have recently been set up in Iquitos (Peru), Buenos Aires (Argentina), and in various locations in Brazil. An important feature of these is that they provide fast and secure access to linguistic and cultural data for local researchers and the language communities. They also make data safer by allowing for regular update procedures within the network

Grazing behavior and productive response of steers in a Lotus tenuis pasture

This investigation, conducted at the INTA experimental farm in Chascomús, Buenos Aires, Argentina (35º 56’ S, 57º 83’ W), studied the effect of two different time of day (am and pm) to initiate grazing of a legume summer pasture on animal production. Two groups of 10 Angus steers each (311 ± 3.9 kg liveweight), allocated at random to treatments, grazed daily a new strip of herbage, the main component of which was birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus tenuis), starting at 09:00 (morning) or 13:00 (afternoon). There were three experimental periods: during the summer of 2012/2013: PI (10/12–02/01), PII (03/01-25/01), and PIII (26/01–20/02); in the last three days of each period herbage quality, grazing behavior, dry matter (DM) intake, and liveweight gain were measured. Data were analyzed per period by ANOVA using a completely randomized design in a general linear model. Grazing time in PII was longer in the afternoon than in the morning (P< 0.05) and the same trend was observed in PIII (P< 0.07). A similar result was recorded for rumination time. Afternoon grazing tended to result in higher intake in and liveweight gain in all periods, but the differences between treatments were (P<0.05) only in PIII (1102 vs. 1565 kg MS ha-1 and 0.022 vs. 0.456 kg d-1). It is concluded that the hour of grazing initiation of a Lotus summer pasture affected the grazing behavior of finishing steers; afternoon grazing promoted greater herbage intake and more rapid liveweight gain

Nitrogen and Carbon Isotopic Dynamics of Subarctic Soils and Plants in Southern Yukon Territory and its Implications for Paleoecological and Paleodietary Studies

We examine here the carbon and nitrogen isotopic compositions of bulk soils (8 topsoil and 7 subsoils, including two soil profiles) and five different plant parts of 79 C3 plants from two main functional groups: herbs and shrubs/subshrubs, from 18 different locations in grasslands of southern Yukon Territory, Canada (eastern shoreline of Kluane Lake and Whitehorse area). The Kluane Lake region in particular has been identified previously as an analogue for Late Pleistocene eastern Beringia. All topsoils have higher average total nitrogen δ15N and organic carbon δ13C than plants from the same sites with a positive shift occurring with depth in two soil profiles analyzed. All plants analyzed have an average whole plant δ13C of −27.5 ± 1.2 ‰ and foliar δ13C of ±28.0 ± 1.3 ‰, and average whole plant δ15N of −0.3 ± 2.2 ‰ and foliar δ15N of ±0.6 ± 2.7 ‰. Plants analyzed here showed relatively smaller variability in δ13C than δ15N. Their average δ13C after suitable corrections for the Suess effect should be suitable as baseline for interpreting diets of Late Pleistocene herbivores that lived in eastern Beringia. Water availability, nitrogen availability, spacial differences and intra-plant variability are important controls on δ15N of herbaceous plants in the study area. The wider range of δ15N, the more numerous factors that affect nitrogen isotopic composition and their likely differences in the past, however, limit use of the modern N isotopic baseline for vegetation in paleodietary models for such ecosystems. That said, the positive correlation between foliar δ15N and N content shown for the modern plants could support use of plant δ15N as an index for plant N content and therefore forage quality. The modern N isotopic baseline cannot be applied directly to the past, but it is prerequisite to future efforts to detect shifts in N cycling and forage quality since the Late Pleistocene through comparison with fossil plants from the same region