Arturo Gómez-Pompa Professor of Ecology and Botany in the Faculty of Sciences of the National University in the Institute of Biology at UNAM. These distinctive and academic positions have gained Gómez-Pompa a prestigious reputation in the ecological world. He discovered the use of Theobroma cacao, or the tree of chocolate, as ancient crops in rejolladas and cenotes within the Yucatán Peninsula. This confirmed his hypothesis on the anthropogenic origins of the Mayan forests and advanced future research in the domestication of tropical trees. Gómez-Pompa created a database for the Flora of Veracruz project in the 1960s that is still utilized to this
Cacao swollen-shoot virus of total cocoa crop loss in the world. Cacao swollen-shoot virus Cacao swollen-shoot virus (CSSV) is a plant pathogenic virus of the family Caulimoviridae that primarily infects cacao trees. It decreases cacao yield within the first year of infection, and usually kills the tree within a few years. Symptoms vary by strain, but leaf discoloration, stem/root swelling, and die-back generally occur. The virus is transmitted from tree to tree by mealybug vectors. It was first discovered in Ghana in 1936, and is currently endemic in Togo, Ghana and Nigeria. Over 200 million trees have already been claimed by this disease,