November 17th 2014

Javier Tardío & Manuel Pardo-de-Santayana

The use-report as a unit for quantifying ethnobotanical knowledge

Dpto. Biología (Botánica)

S3. Methodology of ethnobotanical research

Data collection (anthropological and botanical data)

Processing and organization of the information Databases The information is classified in use-categories

Data analysis, It allows: to resume and evaluate the information

to answer to different questions about the studied populations

Relative importance of natural resources for local peopleComparing the plant use between different populations Relations between biological and cultural diversity

Several aproximations:

Indices based on a subjective allocation of the researcher about the higher or lower importance of each use category.o Some use-categories were considered more important (food, medicine)

than others (construction, firewood). o Ej. Turner 1988, Pieroni 2001, etc.

Indices based in the informant consensus (more objectives)o The higher the importance of a plant-use is, the higher probability of

being mentioned in the interviews.o Examples: Frequency of citation of the species (ej. Adu-Tutu et al.,

1979; Pardo et al 2005 ), use value (Phillips & Gentry,1992), cultural importance index (Tardío&Pardo 2008), etc.

Each event or use-report (UR , Heinrich et al.1998, Kufer et al. 2005):

Informant i mentions the use of species s in the use-category u

i (informant): from i1 to iN, N: total number of informants

s (species): from s1 to sNS, NS: total number of species

u (use-category): from u1 to uNC, NC: total number of use-categories

Summing the use-reports in different ways, it is possible to construct different indices to quantify diverse aspects of the ethnobotanical studies:

Ethnobotanical richness of the studied population

Cultural importance of the botanical species

Cultural importance of the use-categories

Ethnobotanical knowledge of the informants

Others derived indices

The ethnobotanical richness found in a certain study can be measured summing all the UR registered in the study

If we want this value could be employed to compare among different studies, we have to make it relative to the total number of informants (N)

Ethnobotanical richness: is the mean number of use-reports per informant

Variable Total Carranza Gorbeialdea N. Gorbeialdea S. Aramaio

Mean # UR per informant 10 7a 13b 7a 12b

Menendez-Baceta et al. (2015) The importance of cultural factors in the distribution of medicinal plant knowledge: a case study in four Basque regions (in review process, JEP)

Fixing one of the 3 variables and summing the UR we can calculate a value for each element , finding different indices that give usinformation about the study:

1. Fixing the species, if we sum all the the URui, we are suming allthe use-reports mentioned by the informants for that species

Cultural importance of the species in this study

It can be defined as the mean number of use-reports that the informants of a certain survey give for a species (Tardío& Pardo-de-Santayana 2008, Economic Botany)

0,00 0,10 0,20 0,30 0,40 0,50 0,60 0,70

Malva sylvestrisEquisetum sp.pl.

Quercus pyrenaicaSorbus aria

Ulex galliiGenista florida

Asphodelus albusChamaemelum nobile

Salix sp.pl.Rumex acetosa

Populus nigraPteridium aquilinum

Prunus spinosaFraxinus excelsior

Rosa sp.pl.Urtica dioica

Origanum vulgareRubus ulmifoliusCorylus avellanaSambucus nigra

Ulmus minorIlex aquifoliumFagus sylvatica

Crataegus monogynaQuercus sp.pl.

Alimentación animal

Alimentación humana

Medicinal

Tecnología y artesanía

Combustible

Usos simbólicos

Ornamental

Tóxicas

Malas hierbas

Otras

Animal Food

Human Food

Medicine

Technology

Firewood

Symbolic uses

Ornamental

Toxic

Weeds

Others

0,00 0,10 0,20 0,30 0,40 0,50 0,60 0,70 0,80 0,90

Cichorium intybusMalva sylvestris

Scandix australisChamaemelum nobileAllium ampeloprasum

Anchusa azureaRumex acetosaRumex pulcher

Humulus lupulusQuercus ilex subsp. ballota

Rosa sp.Montia fontana

Chondrilla junceaThymus zygis

Prunus spinosaTamus communis

Bryonia dioicaCrataegus monogyna

Rorippa nasturtium-aquaticumRubus sp.

Asparagus acutifoliusSilybum marianum

Foeniculum vulgareSilene vulgaris

Scolymus hispanicus

Verduras

Bebidas

Frutos

Golosinas

Condimento

Conservante

CI of wild edible species traditionally consumed in the province of Madrid (Tardío, Pascual y Morales, 2005)

Vegetables

Beverages

Fruits

Sweets

Sesonings

Preservatives

2. Fixing the use-category, if we sum all the the URis, we are sumingall the use-reports of all the species mentioned by the informantsfor that use-category

Cultural importance of the use-category

It is the mean number of use-reports that the informants of aethnobotanical survey mention for a certain use-category

0 2 4 6 8

Veterinary

Firewood

Symbolic uses

Medicine

Technology

Animal Food

Human Food

3. Fixing the informant, if we sum all the URus, we are suming allthe use-reports of all the species mentioned by that informant

Ethnobotanical Knowledge of the informant (Informant knowledge)

It could be useful to classify the informants of a study based on theirethnobotanical knowledge

NC NSu

uu

s

ssusi URIK

1 1

Cultural importance of the botanical families

0,000,200,400,600,801,001,201,401,601,802,00

CI Botanical families in wild Food ethnoflora of Campoo, Cantabria

The sum of all the CI of all the species belonging to this family

The employ of the use-reports is a rather objective way for quantifying ethnobotanical knowledge

Summing the use-reports in different ways, it is possible to construct different indices to analyze diverse aspects of the surveyed populations

These indices can be also used for comparing the plant use between different populations

Although some specific research questions need to conduct a careful randomized sampling design, more conventional ethnographic data can also be analyzed by these methods