Porroca:
An Emerging Disease of Coconut in the Indigenous Comarca of Kuna YalaThis project focuses on the large-scale epidemiology of an invasive disease of coconuts, "Porroca" or Little Leaf, that is spreading rapidly across Panama, with potentially devastating impacts on the economy of the Kuna Indians, the principal indigenous community of the Caribbean coast of the isthmus. Fundamentally, this project is aimed at helping to solve a potentially devastating socioeconomic problem for the Kuna community, with ongoing community-based experiments for control of the disease. Additionally, the project will contribute toward a model for the spread of plant diseases among isolated forest fragments and biological corridors, using as analogs coconut-covered islands and linear plantations. Collaborative work with Nigel Harrison points to a new phytoplasma as the cause of the disease, and we are working to elucidate the basic biology of the disease and seek control options. This research is a collaboration with Ingrid Parker (Dept. Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, UCSC), Kuna project coordinator Edgardo Soo, and the Kuna General Congress. This project also produced the first complete map of the more than 300 islands in the comarca of Kuna Yala (Map available as 3.2MB pdf file).