NDLI: Medicinal Plant Knowledge Richness and Sharing in Northeastern Brazil

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Alencar, Nélson Leal Júnior, Washington Soares Ferreira Albuquerque, Ulysses Pauli
Copyright Year	2014
Abstract	Determining how knowledge of medicinal plants is distributed in a community has been a challenge in the field of ethnobotany in recent years. Comparing the richness of knowledge and levels of sharing of such information is required in order to understand the patterns of knowledge and use of medicinal plants in traditional communities. This study evaluates the richness and level of knowledge sharing of medicinal plants among the inhabitants of a rural community in the Caatinga region of Pernambuco, Brazil. Knowledge richness and sharing was measured by the knowledge richness index (KRI) and the knowledge sharing index (KSI), which are simple tools to assess the distribution of local knowledge. We found that the community sustains a pharmacopoeia rich in medicinal plants, but that this plant knowledge is not uniformly distributed among community members. Based on the calculated indices, a significant relationship between the richness of knowledge, gender, and age of informants was not discovered. However, occupation was an important factor in the knowledge of medicinal plants, as residents with jobs related to land use had a greater knowledge in this area. The study also indicated that the formation of experts in the community, based on either knowledge of a large number of plants or of exclusive knowledge of particular plants, did not have a direct relationship with age or gender.Compreender como está distribuído o conhecimento sobre plantas medicinais em uma comunidade é um dos novos desafios da etnobotânica nesses últimos anos. Aliado a isso, comparar riquezas e níveis de compartilhamento destas informações faz-se necessário para definir os padrões de conhecimento e uso de plantas medicinais em comunidades tradicionais. Este trabalho objetiva avaliar por meio de índices de valoração a riqueza de conhecimento sobre plantas medicinais e o nível de compartilhamento do conhecimento sobre plantas medicinais entre os habitantes de uma comunidade rural na Caatinga pernambucana, Nordeste do Brasil. A riqueza e compartilhamento do conhecimento foram medidos através do índice de riqueza do conhecimento (KRI) e do índice de compartilhamento do conhecimento (KSI), os quais são índices recentes em estudos etnobiológicos, representando ferramentas simples para avaliar a distribuição do conhecimento em um grupo humano. Apesar de a comunidade ter uma farmacopéia tradicional rica em plantas medicinais, o conhecimento não é distribuído uniformemente, uma vez que foi observado um baixo compartilhamento do. Não foram observadas relações estatisticamente significativas entre a riqueza de conhecimento, gênero e idade dos informantes, ocorrendo uma fraca relação entre a idade e o número de plantas mencionadas pelos informantes. Entretanto, a ocupação foi um fator importante no conhecimento de plantas medicinais, considerando que agricultores apresentaram um maior conhecimento.
Starting Page	371
Ending Page	382
Page Count	12
File Format	PDF
ISSN	00130001
Journal	Economic Botany
Volume Number	68
Issue Number	4
e-ISSN	18749364
Language	English
Publisher	Springer US
Publisher Date	2014-10-16
Publisher Place	Boston
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Local experts traditional pharmacopoeia ethnobotany ethnobiology human ecology Plant Sciences Plant Systematics/Taxonomy/Biogeography Plant Anatomy/Development Plant Physiology Plant Ecology
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Plant Science Horticulture

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
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