Only recently, McClure (2015) integrated data of modern breeds (mainly sheep, goats, and cattle) and current pastoral contexts to describe how animal herding creates a ‘pastoral effect’ in human niches. She proposes that similar effects could have been present when/where herding ecologies were first undertaken by people. The pastoral effect in human niche construction is based on: (1) the biological characteristics of the herd animals, and (2) the cultural traits of livestock management. The main processes involved in the human-animal co-construction of the pastoral niche are perturbation (i.e., the modifications that organisms cause on the environment) and relocation (i.e., the movement of an organism to a new place thus being exposed to a new selective environment). The reader is referred to her work to learn the details of her proposal, but here we extract the basic mechanisms that are complementary to our next section (“Animal agency in landscape and plant domestication”).

Both humans and animals begin perturbation activities when foraging in a new area; they first modify plant communities by selective foraging as well as selective reseeding through defecation, but they also affect local flora by trampling and causing additional biophysical changes in the soils. In addition, humans clear vegetation for different purposes and manage plant populations in diverse ways. Then, depending on the species composition of the herds, their size, and how people manage the different plant species surrounding their settlements, differences in germination of the plant species occur. Eventually, different strategies evolve from the dynamics among human, animal, and plant communities, and other socioecological factors allowing for vegetation to regenerate. For example, mobility may emerge in the form of transhumance or nomadism, while sedentary agropastoralism is yet another possibility. In the former cases, the human–animal impact on plant communities over vast landscapes would be different and of different intensity to that of the latter, where the penning and foddering of animals involve extra modifications of plant communities by people. Since fodders can be gathered from the wild but also intentionally grown (e.g., crop by-products, surplus), a direct link between management of plant and animal domesticates can be seen; besides, confinement in corrals facilitates the accumulation of dung that can be used as fuel and fertilizer, which further assists plant cultivation (Bye, 1979; Kuznar, 1993, 2001; McClure, 2015).

As described earlier, not many empirical studies have aimed at determining how the processes by which the domestication of each of the members of the first ‘agricultural packages’ may have influenced one another. There are only a few exceptions to this pattern, including a handful approaching the question in the ancient past (all in the Old World) (reviewed by Langlie et al., 2014) and others following the Columbian exchange (all in the New World). Within the first group, for example, herbaceous seeds assemblages of animal dung remains, alongside other lines of evidence, have helped to reconstruct local subsistence economies where full season pastoralism but no seasonal dry-farming were coupled (at Atar Haroa, Israel) (Shahack-Gross and Finkelstein, 2008; Shahack-Gross, 2011, in Langlie et al., 2014). In other case, stable isotopes of goat bones, on their part, have showed that one of the first methods of animal husbandry consisted of provisioning them with fodder (in the Near East) (Makarewicz and Tuross, 2012, in Langlie et al., 2014). Stable isotopes evidence has also indicated that a significant part of the early domestic pigs’ diet consisted of millet (in China), which led to propose that cereal and animal domestication reinforced each other (Chen et al., 2014, in Langlie et al., 2014). All these data conform to McClure’s (2015) reconstruction of the first European pastoral niches. Interestingly, Svizzero (2016) has posed the hypothesis that animal domestication, specifically of sheep and goats, was initiated not only via selective hunting (as usually claimed), but also by baiting; and more specifically, through the cultivation of food plots for attracting wild game, either to kill them or to capture them alive. Svizzero states,

To our knowledge, his proposal is the explanation that provides the most detail as to how plant management could have led to animal domestication in this part of the world.

In the second group of related works we find the mirror image of Svizzero’s theory: that camelid management could have led to the domestication of an indigenous Andean crop, quinoa, approximately 3,000 years ago. Such hypothesis, however, is based on recent empirical evidence (Kuznar, 1993; Fritz et al., 2017). Parallel evidence suggesting that animal husbandry promotes plant domestication processes has also been found in the North American, Southwest (Kuznar, 2001) and Mesoamerican pastoral contexts (Bye, 1979). In the latter example, such ongoing processes involve conscious human selection of plant phenotypes. In all three cases, the herding ecologies include only or mostly Old World herbivores (mainly goats and sheep) (see Table 1).

We believe that herding ecologies give birth to certain human-plant mutualisms by means of two related mechanisms. The first is indirect or secondary, by co-creating the anthropogenic environments, i.e., the pastoral niche, where certain plant species thrive at the expense of others while also dispersing seeds in/out settlements (McClure, 2015). The second is direct or primary, by bringing human attention to certain flora, i.e., pastoralists establish intimate relationships with their herds that allow them to first recognize and then experiment with the plants that their animals themselves are consuming. These mechanisms would be complementary to the views of plant domestication as an unconscious evolutionary process (non-centric) (Fuller, 2010), or a knowledge-based human initiative (centric) process (Abbo and Gopher, 2017; for a review, see Langlie et al., 2014).

The indirect animal impact on human–plant relationships is observable at both the landscape and species levels. On the one hand, pastoral anthropogenic environments are created by the unintended biophysical changes that both human and animal disturbances create in conjunction. Landscape domestication, i.e., the changes of species composition in plant communities, takes place as a consequence of the jointly, always concurrent and inseparable activity of pastoralists and their herds. Importantly, there is a wealth of academic literature focusing on the animals’ agency when choosing their food (e.g., flexibility, preferences, social learning) and how this affects plant communities (Villalba and Provenza, 2009; McClure, 2015). Thus, livestock species are themselves domesticators of their shared habitats with humans. On the other, plant domestication occurs when people start managing any species of their pastoral niches. This happens after landscape domestication, when humans begin closer and more frequent encounters with the new plant communities in and around their pastoral settlements. In at least one of the cases reported here (2: Rarámuri), agropastoralists have embarked on the conscious selection of certain phenotypes of a particular species (mustard, Brassica campestris). In other two cases (1: Navajo and 3: Aymara) a range of cultural uses have been reported for some of the dominant plants found near the villages (food, fodder, ritual), or can be inferred from ethnobotanical reports (4: Mapuche, 5: Tzotzil, and 6: American Arctic). In addition, practicing transhumance means being exposed to higher species richness and a larger number of plants vs. those who do not travel (4: Mapuche). The legacies of such human–animal–plant interactions have been detected even after only a few centuries of pastoralism in the New World (next section; and Tables 1, 2).

The direct animal impact on human–plant relationships is detectable at the species level as well. Here, however, human and animal intentions become intermingled in varying and fascinating ways: not only do people notice those species most common in their environment but they also remain attentive to their animals’ preferences at all times and continuously learn from them. Pastoralists and other indigenous peoples around the world gain understanding of the myriad of ecological interactions in their local environments, like plant biology and ecology, by watching other organisms, regardless of the wild/domestic status of the species they coexist with (Nabhan, 2000; Huffman, 2003). From ethnographic evidence one can attest the constant and careful monitoring that people practice over their herds (Perezgrovas, 2004; Wyndham, 2009; Perezgrovas et al., 2014; Molnar, 2017). Moreover, pastoralists are well aware of their animals’ abilities for self-medication (Huffman, 2003; Villalba et al., 2005). From this, we hypothesize that at least some of the species that people have learned to use (i.e., domesticate) were at first tried because they saw livestock species consuming them. Simultaneously, observing herd animals and their ecological interactions may have aided humans in learning how to cultivate certain plants. In this way, plant discovery and plant management can be seen as an interspecific learning process, and not only as a pure human achievement. Indeed, from the herders’ perspective, they are indebted to their animals for their knowledge of landscapes and plants, as can be seen in their explanations such as that they see the grass through the mouth of their animals (Wyndham, 2009; Anderson et al., 2014; Molnar, 2017). Although in the studies we will review next, no instance of such direct animal impact on human–plant relationships was reported, here we suggest that given the circumstantial evidence found in these and other countless ethnobotanical/ethnoveterinary surveys, the potential for searching those kinds of motivations is high: significantly, the large overlap of human/animal useful flora is extensive across the globe, with those species of weedy tendencies being particularly salient (for the Old World, see Zohary et al., 2012; for the New World, see Lira et al., 2016). We believe that it is of high importance that in future enquiries particular attention and further thought be given to these kinds of pastoralists’ interpretations. This would very likely provide a deeper understanding of how people established and continue to establish relationships with plants.

We now present six case studies in the Americas that show the indirect animal impact on human–plant relationships (Tables 1, 2). First, we review instances where Old World livestock have contributed to both cultural endurance and plant diversity enhancement through domestication. Then, we do the same for Andean and Arctic landscapes where camelids and reindeer, respectively, have supported some Native American cultures for millennia. It is important to note that we do not limit ourselves to offer the authors’ main findings, but also provide some salient sociocultural aspects that we believe enrich the pictures of these (agro)pastoral lives. Overall, we aim at bringing more attention to the study of plant domestication in pastoral contexts of the New World, to animal agency in such processes, and to the cultural aspects that permeate them; that is, the links of biological and cultural diversity as a whole.

Kuznar (2001) carried out a study of Navajo anthropogenic habitats, including their livestock’s corrals, and determined that these are one more instance where human–animal–plant ecologies result in the establishment and growth of plants which are also useful to humans. The Navajo live in a reservation covering northeast Arizona, northwest New Mexico and portions of Utah (United States), where the pastoral environments consist of pinyon-juniper forests and sagebrush steppes from 1,875 masl to 2,500 masl. Herds of sheep, cattle, and horses have been part of Navajo life since the eighteen century, but became the core of their livelihoods as transhumance developed about a century later. Among the reasons to keep animals, Navajos argue that livestock raising is the only way to keep traditional land-use rights and that livestock are of social as well as religious relevance.

The author studied a sample of corrals for all animals (sheep, horses, cows), registering the plant species, as well as their number, growing in and around them. From a total of forty plant species found, twenty-eight were pioneer annuals prone to be transported to the corrals by livestock. Using certain criteria of species density (# individual plants/m²), he identified that twelve of such pioneer species were the most common in corrals but also frequently found in other anthropogenic environments such as abandoned cornfields, habitation areas or roadsides (Table 1). Eight of those species were traditional foods that would be harvested in abandoned corrals: beeweed, Cleome lutea; goosefoot, Chenopodium album; tansy mustard, Descurainia pinnata; tumble mustard, Sisymbrium altissimum; knotweed, Polygonum aviculare; Amaranthus graecizans; tumbleweed, Salsola iberica; and Halogeton glomeratus. These two latter are chenopods of recent introduction and closely related to the indigenous goosefoot, Chenopodium album. The four remaining species were reported to be of health or ceremonial or utility: cheeses, Malva neglecta, is used as a lotion on injuries; skyrocket gilia, Gilia aggregate, is used as a remedy for stomach problems and as a luck preparation for hunters; filaree, Erodium cicutarium is used on prayersticks in Navajo ceremonies as well as a sheep forage; and, finally, the wild tobacco, Nicotiana attenuate, is a multipurpose ceremonial species used, for example, to smoke over the livestock everyday as a protective ritual (Kuznar, 2001).

The ecological succession sequences that follow corral installations by the Navajo were also described by the author. The process by which useful weedy annuals emerge starts when people modify the land by clearing an area for building a corral. Then, corrals are used for 5–10 years, when manure accumulates, surrounding trees disappear (as a result of animal wastes, they die within a few years), and there is a general change in soil conditions in and around them (organic matter accumulation, moisture raise) that are favorable for weeds to start colonizing these sites; eventually, the plants are either collected by people or eaten by animals, being observable only seasonally, when the corrals are not in use. Lastly, the corrals are deserted and pioneer species take over these disturbed habitats completely. Under historic Navajo land use, further successional stages would have followed, including the return of different species that would have become both habitat and food for wild animal species such as cottontail rabbit (Sylvilagus spp.), jack rabbit (Lepus spp.), or mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus). In the end, pinyon-juniper communities would grow again and provide both habitat for larger game species as well as grazing environments for livestock. Such cycle is expected to take about 20–40 years.

Finally, the mutualistic relationships among humans, livestock and plants appear to be coded in traditional knowledge: Navajo belief that the Holy People (diyini diné’é or haashch’éé diné’é) gave them livestock to use, so they have to respect such gift. Animal care is the form by which people show respect and, in retribution, the Holy People send rain and food for them; when livestock flourish, so do people. According to this religious perspective on herding, there is interdependence of human, animal and plants lives. Sheep bear the life-giving fluids and saturate the earth with them, which in turn are taken by the plants when they grow; moreover, the plants eventually become sheep again. Sheep are also the carriers of valuable plants, saving them in their hooves and eyelids, and providing people with them.

The pre-Hispanic Rarámuris inhabited the extensive plains and highlands of the modern state of Chihuahua (Northern Mexico), where a failed crop would have been overcome with hunting, fishing and gathering upon the abundant and rich flora and fauna of the region. First Spaniard, and then mestizo continuous colonization of the best lands for agriculture forced them to stay mainly in the highlands, where agriculture is more difficult given the harsh biophysical conditions of mountains and canyons (Granados, 2006). Today’s Rarámuri identity is still based on the making of milpa, a polycropping system where mainly squash, beans and chili accompany the core species, maize (Zea mays). They are also well-known because of their distinctively high mobility; they change their residence in order to cultivate dispersed fields and, if they own livestock, move to canyons in order to protect them from the coldest weather in mountains. Actually, the classical ethnographic descriptions of Rarámuri life depicted them as mixed agro-pastoralists (Hard and Merrill, 1992; Granados, 2006).

The Rarámuris differentiate the realm of cultivated lands, the wasachí, from the one of wild lands or devil’s lands and the sierra in general, the kawichí. However, no strict divide between them exists, for they see both landscapes as a continuum with gradients of humanity within: the ‘least human’ extreme would be the mestizo towns; the ‘most human’ would be the wasachí; finally, the kawichí would occupy an intermediate position, populated by wildlife, supernatural beings, and God’s crops (i.e., the pines are his ‘maize’) (Wyndham, 2009, p. 282). More than 350 plant species are edible in the sierra, and the most important for the Rarámuris are approximately 120 species of quelites (Mexican Spanish) or kiribá (Rarámuri form; Wyndham, 2009), a fundamental component of people’s diet, and pertaining to both the wasachí and the kawichí. This is so because they are wild plants, generally herbaceous, however, are strongly related to human-disturbed habitats such as cultivated fields, field-fence margins, dwelling sites, animals’ corrals, and trailsides (Bye, 1981; Wyndham, 2009). There is a dynamic and constant interaction between the wasachí and kawichí as the daily exchange of nutrients and seeds occur while cattle, sheep, and goats graze in the rangelands and return to their corrals (Bye, 1979, 1981).

Bye (1979) documented phenotypic changes in plant species growing in corrals where Rarámuris pen their animals. He described how people collect wild mustard plants (Brassica campestris) in the kawichí, but they also plant them in the wasachí, specifically in goats and sheep corrals, where the plants thrive; then, those specimens with larger leaves are selected by people (Table 1). Livestock species also modify the landscape incidentally when their owners keep certain trees because they serve to store livestock fodder and to give shade, for instance (Wyndham, 2009). The cultural relevance of livestock species is also attested by the year-round activity of weaving with sheep’s wool (wide belts and blankets of intricate designs) and by their participation in ritual life, since they are not killed for food but for religious sacrifices only (Pintado, 2004; Granados, 2006). The integration of cattle, sheep and goats to the Rarámuri milpa system helped to make its endurance less strenuous. The aggregated consequences of intentional and unintended actions of people and their animals, for sure have influenced the landscapes and biological diversity of this region of the Sierra Madre Occidental (Wyndham, 2009).

In the Andes of Southern Peru, Kuznar (1993) described the mutualism between humans, livestock and plants happening in the so-called sierra alta and puna habitats. Besides, he developed a hypothesis of quinoa domestication (Chenopodium quinoa) based on observations of the current interactions among other two chenopods and livestock species in these habitats. The author also highlighted the salient outcomes that anthropogenic as well as animal modified environments have upon the distribution and concentration of those two and other plant species.

In the Andean sierra alta, the deep valleys and abrupt terrains that stretch out from 2,500 to 3,800 masl support Aymara agro-pastoralists who cultivate potato and other tubers (oca, ulluco), quinoa, barley, as well as other vegetables. Above 3,800 masl, the puna sustain a more exclusively pastoralist agriculture of mixed herds of alpacas, llamas, sheep, goats and cows. Besides, manure has been fundamental for local agriculture since organic matter is a restricted in these areas.

Transhumance is practiced as herders move from lower zones (2,500–3,200 masl) during the wet season, to higher ones (3,200–3,800 masl) during the dry season. In these systems, the author identified the main forage plants used by livestock in valleys located at 2,500–3,800 masl. Among these, two species of Chenopodium were among the most preferred plants not only by goats but also by sheep, cows, and the indigenous llamas, so a prehistoric mutualism between llamas and these forage plants, the author argues, is possible. Recognizing the predilection of goats for such plants, Aymara herders name one of them as quinoa chivo (goat quinoa); the other was identified as Chenopodium petiolare. Stem and leaves’ portions as well as seeds of these and other species are commonly found in the animals’ fur and dung. Other mutualisms take place with Dunalia brachycantha, favored by goats, Mutisia acuminata (chinchelcoma), also favored by goats, and Cantua candelilla (cachicana) preferred by both goats and cows (Table 1). When their frequencies in abandoned campsites vs. wildlands were measured (# plants/ha), the author found a much higher representation of these plants than expected at the pastoral sites, given their distribution throughout the valley. Only for Chenopodium spp., he found a 117 times higher abundance in campsites than in the rest of the area. Moreover, the two communities in which chenopods are found at largest quantities are also the most heavily grazed.

Since herds are left to graze at large during the day and returned to corrals at night, the mutualism occurs while animals, in choosing their favorite food, disseminate their seeds as their feces accumulate in corrals, but also over the entire rangelands. The corrals, however, would be the most fertile and humid locations of the area where plants would thrive. Because chenopods are hardy, opportunistic pioneer species, and animals eat everything but their stem and roots, the author proposes that they would endure the animals’ grazing when grown within and near corrals; then, chenopods would grow new spurts and produce seeds hastily. Additionally, shrubs that inhibit chenopods growth are continuously pruned by goats, so they would also be setting the habitat for these plants by limiting the growth of their competitors (Kuznar, 1993).

The results of this study strongly suggest that livestock-Chenopodium relations are responsible for the geographic association of these plants with the human-livestock habitation sites. According to the author, since the wild ancestor of quinoa would have had similar habits to the wild varieties studied by him, its domestication process would have started with individuals establishing themselves in people’s camps because of their more favorable characteristics, and concentrating there out of animal transportation of their seeds via pastoralism; eventually, the high concentration of this chenopod in pastoral sites and its broad utilization, would have led also to cultivation and selection practices by Aymara herders. Chronologically, first human-animal relations would have been in progress, later the plant would have joined such herding ecologies, which is in agreement with the archeological record (herding appears at 6,000–3,400 years ago, while domestic quinoa emerges about 3,000 years ago). Kuznar concludes asserting that just as plant communities’ composition in the past have been modified by llama and alpaca grazing (using palynological analysis) during millennia, correspondingly, modern herds dominated by goats began similar routes since their arrival to the Andes (see also Marsh, 2015; Fritz et al., 2017).

Ladio and Lozada (2009) reviewed the contemporary use of wild edible plants in relation with cattle transhumance in the so-called monte region of Argentina (Table 2). Indigenous peoples such as the Huarpes, Calchaquies, Puelches, Pehuenches, Ranqueles, Tehuelches, and Mapuches, whose livelihoods were based on agriculture, wild plant gathering, and hunting, were devastated almost totally with the Spaniard colonization. Eventually, they lost their lands and had to move to the most remote and unproductive regions. Mapuche people, in particular, began to dwell the monte areas in the seventeenth century and adopted the European livestock species. Today, they still depend on the plant diversity of the monte habitats in order to obtain food, medicines, products for selling, materials for construction and domestic tools, or ceremonial aims. Transhumance is practiced during summer and winter seasons, and it is locally referred as veranada. Pastoralists and their herds move from the monte or travesía environments to Andean forests of Araucaria araucana (Pehuén forests), collecting edible seeds and plants while traveling and making use of the rangelands. From a comparative study, they also found that people practicing transhumance augment the richness and quantity of the plants they use vs. those who do not travel (Ladio and Lozada, 2004).

On separate investigations, Lanari et al. (2005) have been studying related and overlapping Argentinian socioecological systems in the northern province of Neuquén (Table 2). Their focus, however, is on ethnozoology instead of ethnobotany. As product of their research in areas of Mapuche and Tehuelche cultural roots, they have worked with local communities of goat breeders, whose livelihood depends on a transhumant way of life. These crianceros or goat breeders have exercised specific selection criteria upon their animals for generations, actually giving origin to a breed named the Neuquén criollo goat, a national genetic resource.

Presumably, the human and animal-made environments such as habitation areas, corrals, trails, and so on, of these pastoral niches would be good for different plant species to establish themselves, be consumed by both people and livestock, and even be planted and selected according to specific criteria. As we saw in the Navajo, Rarámuri, and Aymara socioecological systems, weeds such as chenopods are potential and actual colonizers of such habitats, some are edible for people and animals, and some are cultivated. Ladio and Lozada (2009) reported four chenopods among the most used species of the Patagonian monte: Chenopodium oblanceolatum, Atriplex lampa, Suaeda divaricata, and Allenrolfea vaginata. For their part, Castillo and Ladio (2017) recorded fourteen plant species of ethnoveterinary use by others communities of crianceros, also in Argentina (Table 2). Given the utility of these species, in some cases for people as well as animals, they represent a potential source of additional human management (Casas et al., 2007; Clement, 2014) and further human–animal–plant mutualisms that remain to be investigated.

As already introduced when talking about Rarámuri people, in Mexico most contemporary peasants still have a way of life that revolves around maize cultivation. Cultures have given identity to milpa and vice versa as farmers, through their experience in their various habitats, have developed equally diverse kinds of this production system. As a proxy of milpa diversity, consider that roughly 60 languages are still spoken in Mexican territory, which is one of the most ecologically and culturally diverse countries not only in the continent but in the world (Boege, 2008). The significance of maize and milpa goes beyond their nutritional and economic value to people, as the following statements evidence: “to abandon one’s milpa is to forsake the very roots of life” (of the Yucatan Mayas; Redfield and Villa-Rojas, 1934); “[…] the making of milpa is the central, most sacred act, one which binds together the family, the community, the universe” (of the highland Mayas; Nigh, 1976) (apud Alcorn and Toledo, 1998, p. 233).

Tzotzil people live in the Chiapas Highlands, a mountainous area at approximately 2,200 masl. They speak their own language and dress in traditional garments made from sheep’s wool. According to tradition, men take care of milpa cultivation while women are responsible for the family, which includes sheep (Table 2). Small flocks of about a dozen animals can comprise more than a third of a family’s income (through commercialization of animals, wool, handicrafts and woolen garments, as well as manure). They cannot be killed nor eaten for, under Tzotzil cosmovision, sheep are the sacred animals that accompany the Holy Patron of people, Saint John the Baptist. Today, their identity is recognized not only as an element of Tzotzil culture, but also according to genetic criteria (similar to the Neuquén criollo goat) (Gómez et al., 2014). This Old World species is also responsible for a specific kind of soil documented by ethnopedology. Soils are essential for rain fed local agriculture and as such, Tzotzil farmers classify and recognize those following different criteria. The ‘gray soils’ develop when sheep manure is added to the ‘yellow silty soils’ that are afterward used for cultivation, and only occur in the communities practicing agropastoralism, where sheep graze within karstic zones (Bandeira et al., 2002). Even though no specific study on plant domestication dependent on sheep has been carried out for the Tzotzil socioecological systems, the pervasive use of herbal medicines for their health and productivity is well known (Perezgrovas et al., 2014). Importantly, and just as in the case of soil or any other natural resource, the management of these plants happens within the context of indigenous knowledge system and cosmovision. Tzotzil shepherdesses know precisely what plant, combination of species, and/or rituals are required for the treatment of common sheep diseases. They gather them in the wild or near habitation spaces and some of them are also used for human treatments (Geerlings and Perezgrovas, 2014; Perezgrovas et al., 2014). Whether any of these or other species are under incipient management other than simply gathering (Casas et al., 2007; Clement, 2014), or specifically associated with Tzotzil herding ecologies, remains to be investigated. However, and alike other indigenous landscapes in America, Tzotzil milpas, home gardens, orchards, rangelands, fallow fields, forests in various stages of ecological succession, among others, constitute potential arenas for such an outcome.

Camelid agropastoralism has been historically complementary to hunting and gathering in South American since its origins, and continues to be characterized as a remarkable resilient system capable of responding to past and current climate changes (Marsh, 2015). Though Kuznar (1993) reported the abovementioned case study of plant domestication under the context of pastoralism of alien livestock species, this could potentially be also applied for American camelids (llamas Lama glama, and alpacas Vicugna pacos) (Table 1). To our knowledge, however, his work has been the only one of the kind in South America.

Given its weedy tendencies and role as forage for camelids, for chenopods such as quinoa, it has been proposed after Kuznar (1993), recently and more than once (Pearsall, 2008; Marsh, 2015; Fritz et al., 2017), that in prehistoric times such wild species proliferated in human-camelid environments, eventually resulting in the cultivation of the ancestors of quinoa and other species. The hypothesis of simultaneous management of camelids and certain plant species is partially supported by both archaeozoological and archaeobotanical research in the Andes (i.e., earlier presence of domestic camelids than plants; morphological changes of animals together with greater abundance of Chenopodiaceae-Amaranthaceae and Pennisetum, both signaling human management) (Marsh, 2015; Yacobaccio and Vilá, 2016).

Since prehistoric times, reindeer or caribou (Rangifer tarandus) populations have shared the Arctic territories with different indigenous peoples, providing them with hunting, milking and transportation goods. Both wild and domestic engagements between humans and reindeer happen at particular points, not at random but in places with predictable characteristics according to people’s and animals’ knowledge of the land (Baskin, 2003; Andrews et al., 2012; Anderson et al., 2014, 2017).

Anderson et al. (2014), using different archeological and ethnographic data, investigated the signals that human-reindeer ecologies can leave on the landscape (Table 2). Based on archival and ethnographic information, these authors were able to locate what Evenki pastoralists (Siberia) refer to as ‘good places’ or ‘places that suggest themselves’ for they are considered to bear agency. These areas are rangelands or meadows that constitute important forest clearings used as ‘stopping areas’ for both Evenkis and reindeer given their aptitude for satisfying the needs of both. There, people make fire, place their tents, practice agriculture, and watch the herds. Their sampling results (i.e., pollen, plants, fungal spores, soil), on the other hand, allowed them to document some of the historical and contemporary activities of Evenki pastoralists and their reindeer such as reindeer penning, maintenance of rangelands, or formation of vegetation patches. This was achieved by interpreting the species composition of plant communities, which vary according to the trampling intensity due to human-reindeer presence, allowing their classification in functional zones such as those for dwelling, milking and grazing. The authors proposed a model of plant succession where the taiga forest transitions to a meadow community, where signals of cereal agriculture as well as ‘some clear markers of the effects of animal agency such as Polygonum aviculare, Chenopodiaceae, and Poaceae’ could be detected; from here, the forest eventually recovers. Based on their botanical analyses, but also on the animals’ behavior, the authors conclude that reindeer create particular sets of plant communities that may be markers of East Siberian Rangifer agency (Anderson et al., 2014). This so happens not only via the accumulation of their manure, which modifies the soil, but also through the exposition of the permafrost when they are feeding upon the moss cover, inducing melting that creates small lenses of water. The estimates of these land uses occurrence were of about 700 years, that is, go back to the 14th century. Importantly, people recognize reindeer autonomy and their ability to choose the best places to find food and avoid insects and predators, so they follow the herds while animals search for the aforementioned ‘good places’ during their seasonal movements.

Reindeer feeding and habitat selection behavior, as well as their effects on the plant communities are also known for Canadian regions at both recent (e.g., Bodreau and Payette, 2004; Johnson et al., 2004) and historical times (Andrews et al., 2012). However, such data have been acquired on the basis of indigenous hunters’ ethnographies, as well as ecological and archeological analyses. To our knowledge, there has not been an explicit examination of the effects that reindeer husbandry can have on the landscape; i.e., the plant communities, as Anderson et al. (2014) have done in Siberia.

In Northwest Canada, Andrews et al. (2012) doing archeological research on the relation between reindeer and their habitat, and that of the latter with human hunting, have described particular places in the landscapes where animals and people engage both historically and currently (Table 2). The ice patches selected by reindeer in these Canadian alpine forests occur on north- and northeast-facing slopes and vary according to other environmental factors such as snow depth and hardness, and the presence of forage. These areas tend to melt and be surrounded by reindeer manure. The dating of reindeer dung layers in such areas result in associations of about 5,000 years before present. The authors also report that contemporary Shúhtagot’ine hunters still make use of ice patches to kill reindeer according to detailed knowledge of local ecology, but also to a cosmovision where the landscape is sacred. Like other societies of the circumpolar territories, the Shúhtagot’ine believe that the world is instilled with ‘will and purpose’ or agency. Under such vision, animals are other-than-human persons that, together with other spiritual beings, share the land with them.

These examples illustrate how humans, reindeer and plant communities interact in their environmental niches, both in hunting and pastoral ecologies. However, it would be interesting to deepen and refine the knowledge of the most northern pastoral niches of the continent by means of ethnobotanical surveys (for the Gwich’in people of Canada, for instance, but also for other reindeer herding ecologies of the circumpolar Arctic as well, see Anderson et al., 2017; Table 2). Possibly, among the diverse possibilities that human–reindeer–plant interactions can take, there are species in the flora reported by Anderson et al. (2014) in Siberia, or those known for Canada (e.g., Uprety et al., 2012), that are distinctively managed by pastoralists. In Fennoscandia, for example, Rautio et al. (2016) recorded how Sami people have historically managed Angelica archangelica, one of the most important plants used and managed not only as food and medicine, but also and interestingly, as preservative for reindeer milk (Table 2). Besides plants of dietary use, others of ethnoveterinary qualities may be discovered.