What matters when prioritizing a medicinal plant? A study of local criteria for their differential use

Carina Silva Santos,Marcelo De Paula,Fernanda Novais Barros,Patrícia Muniz De Medeiros,Juliana Rando,Viviany Teixeira Do Nascimento

doi:10.1590/0102-33062017abb0336

Abstract

ABSTRACT The ethnobotanical literature lacks joint analyses of the factors that may influence the differential use of medicinal plants. This study intends to fill that void by evaluating the local criteria for the differential use of medicinal plants in a rural community in Northeastern Brazil. We chose two health problems (influenza and constipation) characterized as diseases by local (emic) classification to address the following hypotheses: (1) the most important medicinal plants are easier to acquire; (2) the most important medicinal plants are perceived as being more efficient; and (3) the most important medicinal plants taste better (greater palatability). The plants mentioned in interviews were ranked according to the perception of their use (dependent variable), the difficulty of their acquisition, their taste and their efficiency (independent variables). The perceived efficiency explained the use of medicinal plants for both diseases, while taste explained the use only for constipation. The final models for ‘influenza’ contained only efficiency, while those for ‘constipation’ contained all three variables. These findings indicate that medicinal categories many not be homogeneous and that different targets may be influenced by different variables.

Highlights

In recent years, there has been an increasing trend in the use of ecological and evolutionary approaches in modern ethnobiology, especially in ethnobotany, and factors influencing human foraging behavior are among the main interests of scientists studying evolutionary ethnobiology
Recent studies have addressed local criteria involved in medicinal plant selection (Ankli et al 1999; Omar et al 2000; Gonçalves et al 2016), which is a process that includes two phenomena, namely the introduction of a particular species into a local medical system and the differential use of that species (Medeiros et al 2015a)
Research conducted in relation to the first phenomenon is designed to determine the factors involved in a species being considered medicinal, and research into the second phenomenon is focused on the factors responsible for different degrees of popularity or prioritization of medicinal plant species, the versatility of medicinal plant species, or different therapeutic indications attributed to medicinal plant species

Summary

Introduction

There has been an increasing trend in the use of ecological and evolutionary approaches in modern ethnobiology, especially in ethnobotany (see Albuquerque et al 2015), and factors influencing human foraging behavior are among the main interests of scientists studying evolutionary ethnobiology. Factors that may influence the introduction of medicinal plants and their differential utilization in a local medical system have been discussed in the literature as follows: plant availability (Lucena et al 2007; 2012), chemical/therapeutic efficiency (Slish et al 1999; Khafagi & Dewedar 2000; Araújo et al 2008), cultural perspectives (Rodrigues & Carlini 2006; Mollik et al 2010), and organoleptic properties (taste and smell) (Ankli et al 1999; Leonti et al 2002; Molares & Ladio 2009; Medeiros et al 2015b). We developed models to identify the variables with stronger predictive power for the differential use of medicinal plants employed to treat influenza and constipation

Methods

Results

Conclusion