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 necrosis virus virus is not infective in sap after heating to 65 °C for 10 minutes, dilution to 0.0001 virions, or storage for 7 days at room temperature. Cacao necrosis virus "Cacao necrosis virus" (CNV) is a plant pathogenic virus of the genus "nepovirus" that infects "Theobroma cacao" en natura causing cacao necrosis disease. CNV is considered synonymous with Strain S of cacao swollen shoot virus. Unlike cacao swollen-shoot virus, it is not transmitted by mealybugs nor vectored by aphids, beetles or leafhoppers that also commonly infest cacao. It is serologically, distantly related to Tomato black ring virus and very distantly related