The prevalence and importance of niche construction in agricultural development in Polynesia

Abstract

The practice of cultivation has an immediate and long-lasting effect on the environment. Often, we tend to think of these effects in terms of immediate production outcomes, notably increased plant production. However, such modification of the environment has the potential to directly influence of rate and trajectory of agricultural development more generally. Using niche construction, a concept that has proven effective to understand subsistence change elsewhere, we examine pathways of agricultural change in Polynesia. We highlight the prevalence of niche construction in agricultural trajectories in the region, using both a summary of evidence through Polynesia as well as a targeted case study, and illustrate a framework for organizing those trajectories. In doing so, we build on previous attempts at examining the relationship between cultivation and adaptation in the region, which, given that Polynesia is thought of as a model system for investigating human-environmental relationships, can be used as a more general model of agricultural change globally.