Wild food plants and fungi sold in the markets of Luang Prabang, Lao PDR

Łukasz Łuczaj,Khamphart Tongchan,Małgorzata Karbarz,Somphavanh Radavanh,Vichith Lamxay,Marcin Pietras,Kongchay Phimmakong,Kosonh Xayphakatsa,Villapone Kanyasone

doi:10.1186/s13002-020-00423-y

Abstract

BackgroundOpen air markets hold an important position for ethnobiologists. In Southeast Asia, they are seriously understudied, in spite of their incredible biocultural diversity. In order to fill this gap we recorded plants and fungi sold in the open air markets of Luang Prabang, Lao PDR.MethodsThe markets were visited 38 times in four seasons: the dry season, early monsoon, mid-monsoon, and end-of-monsoon, at least 8 times per season. All items were photographed and voucher specimens were collected. Fungi were identified using DNA barcoding techniques.ResultsWe recorded 110 species of wild edible plants and 54 species of fungi, including 49 wild-collected species. The sold plants included 86 species of green vegetables, 18 species of fruits and 3 species of flowers. Products from woody species constitute around half of all taxa sold. These include the young shoots of tree leaves, which are used for salads—an interesting feature of Lao cuisine. A large number of extremely rare Russula, with no reference sequences represented in databases or even species unknown to science is present on sale in the markets.ConclusionsLuang Prabang markets are some of the richest in species of wild edible plants and fungi in Asia, and indeed in the whole world. It is worth pointing out the exceptionally long list of wild edible mushrooms which are sold in Luang Prabang (and probably elsewhere in Laos). We view the Morning Market of Luang Prabang as a cultural treasure that unites the traditions of eating a large number of living species with very diverse flora and fauna. Measures should be taken to strike a balance between local foraging traditions and nature conservation priorities.

Highlights

Open air markets hold an important position for ethnobiologists [1,2,3]
Plants and fungi were preserved as herbarium specimens and deposited in duplicates: in the herbarium of Warsaw University (WA) and the National Herbarium of Laos (NHL)
The differences between obtained Russula’ sequences was higher than 3%, which is the expected level of interspecific variation for fungi within ITS. This allows us to assume that a large number of extremely rare Russula, with no reference sequences represented in databases, or even species unknown to science may be present on sale in the markets

Summary

Introduction

Open air markets hold an important position for ethnobiologists. In Southeast Asia, they are seriously understudied, in spite of their incredible biocultural diversity. In order to fill this gap we recorded plants and fungi sold in the open air markets of Luang Prabang, Lao PDR. Open air markets hold an important position for ethnobiologists [1,2,3]. They are places where one can usually find the plants, animals, and fungi which are most important to a given culture, e.g., commonly eaten fruits, vegetables, or medicinal plants. The meeting in a public space enables a quick exchange of information of an ethnobiological character, concerning names of the sold organisms, their occurrence and properties. The difficulties in proper biological identification of these fragmentary items can be overcome by DNA barcoding [28, 31, 37]

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