Wine, Beer, Snuff, Medicine, and Loss of Diversity - Ethnobotanical travels in the Georgian Caucasus

In this era, technological advances with the discovery of synthetic dyes have decreased plant use of natural dyes. Data collection regarding natural dye plants for woven fabrics must be carried out to preserve the existence of natural dye plants for woven fabrics so that future generations can use them. The research aims to discover the parts of plants and the process of processing plant parts into natural dyes for ikat fabrics in Tainsala Village. This research uses qualitative and quantitative descriptive methods. Qualitative method through direct observation and semi-structured interviews. Determining respondents using purposive sampling technique. The quantitative method counts the number of species and plant parts of natural dye the plants. Qualitative data analysis describes the species of plant parts and methods of processing plant into natural dyes, while quantitative analysis calculates the percentage of plant types and parts. Based on the results of interviews, data showed that the plants used by the community in the process of dyeing ikat fabrics woven include Morinda citrifolia L. (10%), Mangifera indica L. (25%), Curcuma domestica (100%), Opuntia ficus-indica, Indigofera tinctoria (100%), Tectona grandis L.f. (50%), Pterocarpus indicus (20%), Hibiscus laevis (100%), Cordia dichotoma (100%), Clitoria ternatea (100%). The plant parts used are rhizomes (10%), leaves (60%), fruit (10%), and stem bark (20%). Plants are traditionally processed in 2 ways, namely by heating (boiling) and without heating (soaking). Conclusion: 10 species of plants are used as natural dyes for woven fabric in Tainsala village, and parts of the leaves (60%) are mainly used as natural dyes for woven fabrics. The processing is done in 2 ways, heating and without heating.

AjiChay is one of the most important rivers in the Urmia catchment area, which collects relatively large regional waters from the East Azerbaijan province and sends them to Lake Urmia. In recent years, in order to revive Lake Urmia, parts of the river have been rehabilitated and reorganized to transfer water to the main body of Lake Urmia. In this research, the effects of environmental damage on the improvement of the AjiChay River in physical, biological, social, economic and cultural environments were studied and evaluated using two methods of organizing and non-organizing of Pastakia matrix and weighted checklist (scaled). The study of the construction and operation of the project based on the results of the method of Pastakia showed that the positive effects of the project are 61% and its negative effects are 31.7%, and 7.3% of the works are not effective. The results of the checklist method also showed that the failure to implement the Aji Chai River Arrangement Plan would result in 13 positive effects versus 29 negative ones. Positive effects are limited to natural and physical environments and biological environments, but negative effects will occur in addition to those environments in the economic and social environments. In general, the results of both methods show that the most positive effects of this plan are related to socio-economic aspects. Ultimately, the environmental impact assessment shows that the Ajichay scheme has succeeded in achieving its primary goals.

BACKGROUND: The local villagers residing at Sadasivakona sacred grove are associated with medicinal plants and utilize many medicinal plants to cure ailments. Because of this, the present study was intended to document the traditional uses of medicinal plants used by local villagers residing at Sadasivakona—a sacred grove of Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh, India. METHODS: The documentation of indigenous knowledge on medicinal plants used by local villagers of Sadasivakona sacred grove was carried out with a structured questionnaire. The documentation of indigenous knowledge was made by conducting several tours and personal interviews with their local dialect from 2019 to 2020. RESULTS: Sixty-seven potential medicinal plants belonging to 59 genera and 36 families were documented from Sadasivakona—a sacred grove of Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh, India. For the preparation of medicine, leaves (49%) among the plant parts, paste (36%) among the form of medicine, internal administration (53%) among the intake of medicine, and cough (16%) among the ailment treatment were noticed as the highest percentages. Altogether, 41 types of ailments were successfully documented from the herbal practitioners of Sadasivakona sacred grove. CONCLUSIONS: There is no documentation on the indigenous knowledge of local villagers of Sadasivakona sacred grove so far. Hence the present study focuses on the documentation of perishing knowledge of this sacred grove. Among the documented plants, the therapeutic uses of 28 medicinal plants were matched with Dr. Duke’s Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical database and 10 medicinal plants with Foundation for Revitalization of Local Health Traditions database. The documented information may be helpful to the pharmaceutical industries in the preparation of novel drugs.

Tobacco farming is relatively economically profitable compared to other field crops but has many negative environmental impacts. Thestudy was conducted to compare the socioeconomic conditions of tobacco farmers (TF) and non-tobacco farmers (NTF) and explore theenvironmental impacts of tobacco farming. Data were collected using a well-structured questionnaire. The average monthly householdincome of TF (Tk18052 ± 1552) was significantly higher than NTF (Tk15980 ± 2235), which made TF more empowered than NTF in termsof housing conditions, weekly fish/meat consumption, and Eid/festival expenditure. Although there were no significant differencesbetween the two groups on credit borrowing, residential ownership, television and freeze ownership, cellphone and internet use, drinkingwater sources, and type of latrine used. In 2021, total GHG emissions from tobacco farming in Bangladesh (Global warming potentialfor a 100-year time horizon) (710664 ± 19414) tCO2e, which was 0.26% of total national annual emissions. That is, about (7.7 ± 0.21)kg of CO2e was emitted to produce one kg of tobacco leaves in Bangladesh. Disruption of family peace and happiness, increase in fireincidence, and increase in nicotine addiction among the youth and adolescents of tobacco farm families were the direst social problemscaused by tobacco cultivation. Increased perspiration, weakness and fatigue, and headache were the most common symptoms of GTSeffects. The prevalence of GTS effects largely depended on the nutritional status, age, and gender of the farmers. Although tobaccocultivation made TF relatively safer in socioeconomic conditions compared to NTF, it caused health damage to the farmers as well asdegradation of the physical, biological, social, and cultural environment. Governments should develop strategies to improve farmers’livelihoods or switch to more profitable cash crops.

BackgroundWild edible fruits found in Tanzania's miombo woods are an indispensable source of food and medicine. Unfortunately, with the rapid expansion of human activities and urbanisation in the Tabora rural, Uyui and Sikonge districts of Western Tanzania, some wild fruits are disappearing due to the loss of plant diversity. The objectives of this study wereL: to document the knowledge related to wild edible fruits; to quantify the use and cultural significance, and to determine their threats.MethodsThe ethnobotanical study was conducted from June 2022 to February 2023 involving 244 local informants. The study used field visits, the collection of plant parts, and semi-structured interviews with locals for its data collection. Descriptive statistics and correlation test were used to analyse the knowledge related to wild fruits. Frequency citation (f) and use reports (UR) were computed to understand the diversity and cultural significance (CI).ResultsThe study documented 27 wild edible fruit species used for food and medicine. The life form constituted deciduous shrubs or trees (64%), shrub trees (21%) and evergreen or deciduous trees (15%). About (56%) of wild edible fruits were collected from June to August after the rainy season, (33%) were harvested between December and May during the rainy season, and (11%) were gathered from September and November before the rainy season. Household size and sex of the respondents were significantly correlated to the knowledge of wild edible fruits. Higher utilisation frequency (f) was recorded for Vitex mombassae Vatke (f = 0.84), Strychnos spinosa Lam. (f = 0.82), Vitex payos (Lour.) Merr. (f = 0.56), Phyllogeiton discolor (Klotzsch) Herzog. (f = 0.45), Vangueria infausta Burchell (f = 0.45), Tamarindus indica L. (f = 0.38), Parinari curatellifolia (f = 0.25), Landolphia parvifolia K.Schum. (f = 0.22) and Microcos conocarpa Burret (f = 0.22) fruits species. Additionally, Phyllogeiton discolor (Klotzsch) Herzog. (UR = 56), Vitex mombassae Vatke (UR = 56), Tamarindus indica L. (UR = 37), Strychnos spinosa Lam. (UR = 14) and Friesodielsia obovata (Benth.) Verdc. (UR = 11), have higher use reports (UR) and considered culturally important. Wild fruits were used to cure diabetes, gastrointestinal, reproductive, and respiratory infections ailments.Discussion and conclusionMultiple uses as well as the related knowledge of wild fruits have been documented. Friesodielsia obovata, Grewia flavescens Juss and Thespesia garckeana F.Hoffm. are the medicinal fruit species reported for the first time. Harvesting of wood plants, charcoal activities, crop cultivation, grazing expansion, and environmental change, have had an impact on the diversity of wild edible fruit plants. Over the past three decades, the use of wild fruits has been impacted by the loss of plant diversity due to decline of cultural norms on the forests management. Given the variety of uses for wild fruits, promoting markets for native fruits, sensitising the locals about the cultural importance and innovation on processing techniques are necessary to spur conservation efforts.

The rapid growth of the human population and the concomitant demands for fuel, food and agricultural products put increasing pressures on ecosystems around the world. This has become a major driver of global environmental change, resulting in the destruction or modification of natural terrestrial ecosystems, often followed up by dramatic losses in biological diversity. Effective management strategies are needed, balancing biodiversity conservation and agricultural production. <br/> In this thesis, we analyse the direct and indirect influences of local land use intensification on diversity and abundance patterns of herbivore and predator insect communities in natural grassland ecosystems across three different regions in Germany. We assess landscape composition and configuration effects on pest insects spilling over from crop fields to grasslands, affecting fruit set of wild plants. Finally, we conclude with suggestions for biodiversity conservation practices on local and landscape scales. <br/> Chapter 1 gives an overview of the topics covered in this thesis. In Chapter 2, we use the framework of a large-scale and multi-site experiment, located in three regions of Germany along a 600-km north-south gradient, to show that local land use intensification reduces diversity and abundance of the herbivore community consistently across all study regions. Mowing frequency, affecting vegetation height and local plant species richness, excelled as key predictor of declines in herbivore diversity. Predators were bottom-up controlled via herbivore diversity and not directly influenced by management intensification. Experimentally established short-term and small-scale succession enhanced herbivore diversity, which in turn increased predator diversity via bottom-up effects. Interestingly, efficiency of this conservation practice increased with land use intensity, in particular with mowing frequency. Temporarily allowing successional subplots on intensively used grasslands appeared to be a low cost but high benefit conservation measure introducing and sustaining habitat heterogeneity and insect diversity despite of ever changing land use practices and environmental conditions. <br/>Chapter 3 relates management-induced reduction in host plant height to colonization success of specialized grass-shoot miners. In this study, changes in host grass heights resulted from experimentally excluding subplots from management (1-year set aside) or of an a priori selection of continuously managed and already abandoned (≥2-year set-aside) grassland patches. We show that abundances of herbivores are negatively affected by a management–induced reduction in host shoot length over time. Especially on continuously managed grasslands, overlaps in attack heights between species increased, potentially narrowing spatial niche width for co-occurring species. Mean grass shoot length above 1 m in the abandoned areas was a threshold, boosting colonization success for two out of three species. We conclude that implementation of small grassy strips e.g. located at grassland edges, excluded from grazing and mowing for at least two years should be highly effective in supporting a diverse and abundant insect community and may provide suitable refuges from which stem-borers can re-colonize sward islets on managed grasslands. <br/> Chapter 4 presents a grassland phytometer experiment that quantifies scale dependent crop-noncrop spillover of rape pollen beetles (Brassicogethes aeneus) and fruit set of insecticide-treated and untreated wild mustard plants (Sinapis arvensis) as a consequence of herbivore damage. We used a set of 20 grassland plots along a gradient of increasing proportion of oilseed rape (OSR) within eight circles (with 250 to 2000 m radius) around the centre of each plot. Our results show that pest insect spillover from crop fields is triggered by pulsing availability of mass-flowering crops at different spatial scales. Mustard in the direct neighbourhood of cropland (250 m) suffered first from increased herbivore spillover since damage increased with decreasing distance from crop fields after mass-flowering peak of crops. Thus, a minimum distance of 250 m between large crop monocultures and wild plants (of the same family) in grasslands may reduce potentially negative herbivore spillover effects. <br/> Taken together, the results presented in this thesis provide evidence that land use intensification reduces diversity and abundance of insect communities in grasslands via direct and indirect effects. Mowing frequency excelled as a key driver of herbivore diversity decline in all three regions. Pest insect spillover across the crop-noncrop interface increases with higher proportions of crop fields at small spatial scales and can reduce fruit set in wild plants, suggesting to keep a minimum distance between crop monocultures and habitats when high biodiversity (e.g. on calcareous grasslands) needs to be protected. We further show that even small and easily set up successional islets on meadows and pastures can serve as important refuges for the diversity of herbivores and associated predators. Since the efficiency of this conservation practice increases with (i) land use intensity and (ii) duration, we expect the highest benefit of long-term grassland set-asides on intensively managed grasslands.

Background and Aim:Medical research institute is the main basis for knowledge production through conducting research, and paying attention to the research is one of the most important things in the scientific communities. At present, there is a large gap between knowledge production in Iran compared to that in other countries. This study aimed to identify the challenge of research system in a research institute of medical sciences in Iran.Matherials and Methods:This was a descriptive and qualitative study conducted in the first 6 months of 2013. A qualitative content analysis was conducted on 16 heads of research centers in a research institute of medical sciences. The required data were gathered using semi-structured interviews. The collected data were analyzed using MAXQDA 10.0 software.Results:Six themes identified as challenges of research system. The themes included barriers related to the design and development, and approval of research projects, the implementation of research projects, the administrative and managerial issues in the field of research, the personal problems, publishing articles, and guidelines and recommendations.Conclusion:Based on the results of the present study, the following suggestions can be offered: pushing the research towards solving the problems of society, employing the strong executive and scientific reseach directors in the field of research, providing training courses for researchers on how to write proposals, implementing administrative reforms in the Deputy of Research and Technology, accelerating the approval of the projects through automating the administrative and peer-reviewing processes.

The use of plant roots as traditional medicine for Dayak Desa tribe is carried out from generation to generation, but has not been documented properly. This study aims to identify the types of plants used, parts of plants used, and the way they are processed by Dayak Desa tribe, from Kayan Hilir District, Sintang Regency, Indonesia. The survey was conducted in March 2018 and information was collected from the community through interview and field observation. Information was recorded through semi-structured interviews with 100 informants. Data analysis was done by compiling and classifying the medicinal plants based on its family, benefits and how to use them and location from where they were obtained. Then data were documented calculated in term of percentage of families and the percentage of the way to use them. The results showed that twenty five medicinal plants were more commonly belongs to families of Araceae, Fabaceae, and Poaceae with a percentage of 8% each. The most used part of the plant used by Dayak Desa tribe was the roots after with percentage 60%, and are discussed in this manuscript.

All over the world, pollinators are threatened by land‐use change involving degradation of seminatural habitats or conversion into agricultural land. Such disturbance often leads to lowered pollinator abundance and/or diversity, which might reduce crop yield in adjacent agricultural areas. For West Africa, changes in bee communities across disturbance gradients from savanna to agricultural land are mainly unknown. In this study, we monitored for the impact of human disturbance on bee communities in savanna and crop fields. We chose three savanna areas of varying disturbance intensity (low, medium, and high) in the South Sudanian zone of Burkina Faso, based on land‐use/land cover data via Landsat images, and selected nearby cotton and sesame fields. During 21 months covering two rainy and two dry seasons in 2014 and 2015, we captured bees using pan traps. Spatial and temporal patterns of bee species abundance, richness, evenness and community structure were assessed. In total, 35,469 bee specimens were caught on 12 savanna sites and 22 fields, comprising 97 species of 32 genera. Bee abundance was highest at intermediate disturbance in the rainy season. Species richness and evenness did not differ significantly. Bee communities at medium and highly disturbed savanna sites comprised only subsets of those at low disturbed sites. An across‐habitat spillover of bees (mostly abundant social bee species) from savanna into crop fields was observed during the rainy season when crops are mass‐flowering, whereas most savanna plants are not in bloom. Despite disturbance intensification, our findings suggest that wild bee communities can persist in anthropogenic landscapes and that some species even benefitted disproportionally. West African areas of crop production such as for cotton and sesame may serve as important food resources for bee species in times when resources in the savanna are scarce and receive at the same time considerable pollination service.

Crop circles revealed spatio-temporal patterns of beaver foraging on cereal fields

This chapter explores the ways of participation of local villagers in the redevelopment process of Liede Village in Guangzhou. Liede Village as the first to undergo complete demolishment and reconstruction is a so-called experimental pioneer in the process of redeveloping Guangzhou’s urbanized villages. Whereas usually most attention is paid to the key stakeholders like the government, developers, and the respective urbanized village joint-stock company, here the emphasis lies on the local villagers’ attempts to take part in the decision-making processes and on their informal coping strategies in a politically insecure and experimental environment. Even though they possess a rather passive role in the official proceeding, mainly being informed by the village’s joint-stock company, they nevertheless found informal ways to organize themselves and to articulate concerns in order to safeguard their interests. Clan ties, family structures, and intra-collective guanxi are demonstrated to be important factors that can be seen as crucial decision-making elements on the very grassroots level.KeywordsVillagers’ participationLiede VillageUrbanized village redevelopmentPioneerStakeholder relationships

NAUPXA 1.1 | Notes on taxonomy and nomenclature Naupactus (Dejean 1821) is a neotropical genus of broadnosed weevils containing approximately 200 species distributed from Southern Mexico to Argentina (del Ro & Lanteri, 2019). Naupactus xanthographus was first described by Germar in 1824, who previously classified the species as Leptocerus xanthographus (Elgueta & Marvaldi, 2006).

Aim Grasslands and savannas, which make up > 75% of Madagascar's land area, have long been viewed as anthropogenically derived after people settled on the island c. 2 ka. We investigated this hypothesis and an alternative - that the grasslands are an insular example of the post-Miocene spread of C 4 grassy biomes world-wide. Location Madagascar, southern Africa, East Africa. Methods We compared the number of C 4 grass genera in Madagascar with that in southern and south-central African floras. If the grasslands are recent we would expect to find fewer species and genera in Madagascar relative to Africa and for these species and genera to have very wide distribution ranges in Madagascar. Secondly, we searched Madagascan floras for the presence of endemic plant species or genera restricted to grasslands. We also searched for evidence of a grassland specialist fauna with species endemic to Madagascar. Plant and animal species endemic to C 4 grassy biomes would not be expected if these are of recent origin. Results Madagascar has c. 88 C 4 grass genera, including six endemic genera. Excluding African genera with only one or two species, Madagascar has 86.6% of southern Africa's and 89.4% of south-central Africa's grass genera. C 4 grass species make up c. 4% of the flora of both Madagascar and southern Africa and species: genus ratios are similar (4.3 and 5.1, respectively). Turnover of grasses along geographical gradients follows similar patterns to those in South Africa, with Andropogoneae dominating in mesic biomes and Chlorideae in semi-arid grassy biomes. At least 16 monocot genera have grassland members, many of which are endemic to Madagascar. Woody species in frequently burnt savannas include both Madagascan endemics and African species. A different woody flora, mostly endemic, occurs in less frequently burnt grasslands in the central highlands, filling a similar successional niche to montane C 4 grasslands in Africa. Diverse vertebrate and invertebrate lineages have grassland specialists, including many endemic to Madagascar (e.g. termites, ants, lizards, snakes, birds and mammals). Grassland use of the extinct fauna is poorly known but carbon isotope analysis indicates that a hippo, two giant tortoises and one extinct lemur ate C 4 or CAM (crassulacean acid metabolism) plants. Main conclusions The diversity of C 4 grass lineages in Madagascar relative to that in Africa, and the presence of plant and animal species endemic to Madagascan grassy biomes, does not fit the view that these grasslands are anthropogenically derived. We suggest that grasslands invaded Madagascar after the late Miocene, part of the world-wide expansion of C 4 grassy biomes. Madagascar provides an interesting test case for biogeographical analysis of how these novel biomes assembled, and the sources of the flora and fauna that now occupy them. A necessary part of such an analysis would be to establish the pre-settlement extent of the C 4 grassy biomes. Carbon isotope analysis of soil organic matter would be a feasible method for doing this.

Anthropogenic landscape changes have greatly reduced the population size, range and migration rates of many terrestrial species. The small local effective population size of remnant populations favours loss of genetic diversity leading to reduced fitness and adaptive potential, and thus ultimately greater extinction risk. Accurately quantifying genetic diversity is therefore crucial to assessing the viability of small populations. Diversity indices are typically calculated from the multilocus genotypes of all individuals sampled within discretely defined habitat patches or larger regional extents. Importantly, discrete population approaches do not capture the clinal nature of populations genetically isolated by distance or landscape resistance. Here, we introduce spatial Genetic Diversity (sGD), a new spatially explicit tool to estimate genetic diversity based on grouping individuals into potentially overlapping genetic neighbourhoods that match the population structure, whether discrete or clinal. We compared the estimates and patterns of genetic diversity using patch or regional sampling and sGD on both simulated and empirical populations. When the population did not meet the assumptions of an island model, we found that patch and regional sampling generally overestimated local heterozygosity, inbreeding and allelic diversity. Moreover, sGD revealed fine-scale spatial heterogeneity in genetic diversity that was not evident with patch or regional sampling. These advantages should provide a more robust means to evaluate the potential for genetic factors to influence the viability of clinal populations and guide appropriate conservation plans.

The ecological environment is the foundation of human survival and development, and forest ecosystem nature reserves play an important role in the protection of the ecological environment. The evaluation of forest ecosystem nature reserves facilitates the formulation of relevant management policies. At present, the evaluation of the ecological environment of forest ecosystem nature reserves is mainly based on detailed evaluation of some elements of the ecological environment, rather than on a comprehensive quantitative evaluation that reflects the ecological environment in many aspects. To address this shortcoming, the quantitative evaluation indicator system of comprehensive ecological environment for forest ecosystem nature reserves was established based on the water, air, soil, and biological environments, according to the consensus on ecological environment in the past research and characteristics of the research area. The weight is still a necessary and important link in the evaluation of forest ecosystem nature reserves, but the accuracy of the weight results is difficult to get a scientific judgment. To prevent the evaluation results being influenced by weighting uncertainty, an unweighted cloud model was constructed to provide an evaluation mechanism without weight. The ecological environment evaluation was then carried out using the unweighted cloud model, taking Songshan Nature Reserve as a research area. The results show that the grades of the ecological environment of Songshan Nature Reserve are 21% excellent, 67% good, and 12% qualified, and that the state of the ecological environment is stable and performing well. The evaluation results for the grades of the environmental dimension layers are water environment &gt; soil environment &gt; biological environment &gt; air environment. The study’s research results can provide theoretical support for the evaluation of forest ecosystem nature reserves, and for evaluation work in general when weights are difficult to determine or uncertain.