Economic Botany最新文献

Maize is an important crop for food security and livelihood improvement in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. Maize varieties that enable farmers to increase their productivity and profitability, for example, can help them achieve these development outcomes. Contextual factors shape women’s and men’s preferences for specific maize traits and varieties, thus influencing varietal uptake and the contribution varieties make towards securing people’s livelihoods. Understanding contextual factors is paramount to pursuing gender equal outcomes within research-based maize breeding. We review literature on the demand for and access to improved maize varieties in Nigeria by using a framework that helps breeding programs become more gender-responsive and, thereby, enhance their impact via increased uptake. Findings show that attention towards the role of social norms in shaping the contexts where women and men maize farmers negotiate production-related decisions, form trait preferences, and access improved maize varieties has been limited within breeding programs, while ethnobotanical approaches are absent. To boost gender equal outcomes, maize breeding programs should identify the reasons motivating women’s and men’s varietal preferences and their different capacities to access improved varieties with the suited characteristics. To pursue this objective, gender-based Indigenous knowledge should be integrated since the first stages of varietal development.

Both human and non-human animals utilize tree bark as a food resource or for medicinal purposes. The preferences of animals can be explained by the nutritional quality of the bark, chemical composition, and ease with which the animals can remove the bark. Humans also exhibit preferences when selecting resources, and factors such as perceived efficacy, species versatility, and bark morphology may favor their use. In this study, we investigated whether the selection of medicinal plants in the Caatinga is based on the anatomical characteristics of the stem bark. To investigate this phenomenon, we tested the hypothesis that more versatile medicinal plants have bark structures that influence their removal. We studied the stem bark anatomy of 20 woody medicinal plants, ten with higher versatility and ten with lower versatility. We observed that the anatomical features of the bark did not predict versatility. Therefore, human selection for these species may be associated with other factors that people consider important.

Wild edible plants are important for the livelihoods of both rural and urban people in West Africa, but little is known about their trade networks. This study identifies, quantifies, and characterizes the local trade of wild edible plants in northern Guinea-Bissau to better understand the linkages between wild edible plants, local markets, and livelihoods, and to evaluate the sector’s ecological and economic sustainability. Interviews with 331 market vendors in the capital Bissau and in five sub-regional urban markets revealed that 19 products from 12 species were traded, with an estimated annual retail value of at least 707,000 USD for a volume of 354 metric tons (tonnes). These products are mainly harvested from the country’s woodlands by female vendors in sub-regional markets and are primarily traded to Bissau or neighboring countries. However, increasing demand and persisting deforestation for cashew plantations coupled with a lack of management strategies raise concerns about the long-term availability of certain wild edible plants. The study’s findings are also discussed in terms of their implications on local livelihoods, particularly for rural women who rely on the trade of wild products for income and as a social safety net. We highlight the need to secure women’s roles and enhance their collective power in added value chains.

As a field of study, ethnobotany is known for its interdisciplinary nature, drawing from a range of subjects, such as botany, anthropology, chemistry, ecology, and others. Though ethnobotany is broad and diverse, it does—on occasion—fall short when examining specific theoretical orientations and their applications within the discipline. In addition to this, there are many other forms of theoretical orientation—especially from the social sciences—that may hold great value for ethnobotany; some of these hold extra promise as a result of their inherent connection to themes of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) that have become increasingly acknowledged for their importance in academia in recent years. One such theoretical orientation is queer theory. The following paper provides a brief historical and epistemological overview of queer theory, and proposes a need for the development and practice of queer ethnobotany. Not only does queer theory stand to make ethnobotany a more diverse and accepting field, but it also has the potential to contribute to expanding upon the theoretical toolkit ethnobotanists may draw on in the classroom, the field, and beyond.

In the literature of the last century, there was the recurrent claim that an orchid called amatzauhtli was used as an adhesive in the manufacture and repair of indigenous Mexican handmade paper or amate—an attestation some scholars still repeat even today. Here, we describe the present use of the orchid Cyrtopodium macrobulbon in the final step of amate papermaking in the village of San Pablito, Puebla. After amate sheets are dried on and subsequently peeled from wooden boards, the pseudobulbs of the orchid are cut and used as an adhesive to patch over any holes or other imperfections that remain on the paper. Cyrtopodium macrobulbon is locally called küiä by Otomí papermakers, which they translate to Spanish as “pegamento” (glue). We also suggest that the amatzauhtli described in the sixteenth century by Hernández—widely reported as Epidendrum pastoris—actually refers to a very different species, Trichocentrum pachyphyllum, and we discuss the putative use of this and other orchids in pre-Hispanic amate making.

Classical scholars have long held that the saffron in widespread use throughout the ancient Mediterranean was Crocus sativus (Iridaceae), a sterile triploid descendant of the wild Crocus cartwrightianus, and indeed use of Crocus sativus in antiquity has been extensively borne out both by iconographic and phylogenetic studies. Two principal scholars of the Roman world, Dioscorides the physician and Pliny the natural historian, disagreed radically over the virtues and commercial value of saffron crocus from Sicily, with one praising its quality, and the other excoriating it. This study draws on ecophysiology, classical texts, environmental archeology, and phytochemistry to explain this disagreement and its implications. It explores the potential impact of microclimate on crocus cultivation in the ancient Mediterranean and proposes a new species identification for Sicilian crocus: Crocus longiflorus. The identification of Crocus longiflorus as “Sicilian saffron” offers an important corrective to the assumption that Crocus sativus was the sole crocus species of commercial value in the ancient Mediterranean and renews attention to the economic potential and utility of an indigenous southern Italian species overlooked in classical and later scholarship.

Citizen science is a tool that makes it possible to design large-scale studies while developing dialogues among people. It has developed in many fields, such as ecology, biodiversity studies, climatology, and sociology. Done properly, it can help produce a large amount of data that can later be analyzed using statistical tools. Can ethnobotany also benefit from such investigations? Based on three citizen science projects carried out in a botanical garden, this paper explores the possibility of developing ethnobotanical citizen science research in a context other than that of fieldwork. Examples include a literacy laboratory within a multicultural exhibit (2018), a survey on the uses of medicinal plants during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic (2021), and a call for testimonials about and recipes for medicinal plants from around the world (2020–2023). This approach, enriched by the citizens themselves, is in keeping with the aspirations of the ethnobiologists who have called for a paradigm shift following the COVID-19 pandemic, perceived as a tipping point. Citizen science practices implemented in a museum institution, such as a botanical garden, thus make it possible to carry out multicultural surveys and discuss results with people in an open dialogue.

The concept of “ecological keystone species” underscores the central role certain species play in ecosystem dynamics. Analogously, “cultural keystone species” are essential in organizing social-ecological systems, reflecting the critical relationship between humans and their environment. While various indicators have been proposed for identifying cultural keystone species, recent studies have questioned their efficacy. Challenges persist in defining clear criteria for identifying these species, distinguishing them from other culturally and economically important species, and incorporating the emic perspectives of local communities. To address these challenges, we propose the cultural keystone species syndrome (CKSS) approach, which focuses on species identified as unique from an emic perspective. We conducted a case study in the Araripe-Apodi Environmental Protection Area in northeastern Brazil, where two communities, Horizonte and Sítio Macaúba, rely heavily on plant extraction for livelihoods. Using the free listing technique, we identified species considered culturally important by local residents. Our findings reveal an overlap between species identified as having the cultural keystone species syndrome and those considered only culturally significant, challenging the notion of exclusive cultural keystone species. We discuss the implications of our findings for biocultural conservation and highlight the need for a more nuanced understanding of cultural keystone species and their role in shaping social-ecological systems dynamics.

Ethnobiology analyzes the interactions between people and their surrounding environments from various perspectives. Some studies have been criticized by social scientists, who argue that ethnobiologists have insufficiently considered the conflicts between the dominant economic and political model and rural communities’ lives, which are often idealized. However, several ethnobiological studies have increasingly considered these aspects, and important initiatives in this direction have emerged from interactions with other research fields and frameworks, such as sustainability science, political ecology, agroecology, and social-ecological systems. To address criticism on what has been considered ethnobiological utopianism, it is valuable to theorize, develop methodological tools, and construct explanatory models. From such perspective, this work aims to recover an old theory called ecosymbiotic complementarity, which we propose can strengthen analytical approaches in the social-ecological systems framework. We recover the original proposal of the ecosymbiotic complementarity theory, emphasizing the relationships between rural communities and economic and political variables. We consider that the ecosymbiotic complementarity theory can contribute to the contextualization of rural societies analyzed in ethnobiological research.

The bow-and-arrow was not manufactured or widely used by Indigenous Peoples within the Australian continent, and the suitability of woody Australian plant species for constructing bows is poorly understood. The mechanical and physical properties of 326 plant species, including species highly suitable for self-bows and 106 native Australian species, were analyzed and compared using principal component analysis. Additionally, qualitative information regarding the use of Australian woods for bows was obtained from bow-making internet forums. The results suggest that Australian woods have combinations of properties that make them sub-optimal for bows compared to common woods from other parts of the world. The findings may explain the historical absence of bow-and-arrow technology on the Australian continent. Future work is needed to collect data from a broader range of woody Australian species, along with empirical research to assess the suitability of Australian woods for bow-making. The work also demonstrates, for the first time, that principal component analysis is a useful technique for exploring the suitability of woods for self-bows and should be investigated further for this purpose.