Cargando…

The ethnobotany and biogeography of wild vegetables in the Adriatic islands

BACKGROUND: Archipelagos of islands have played an important role in shaping some of the paradigms of biology, including the theory of the evolution of species. Later, their importance in biology was further emphasised by the theory of island biogeography, which contributed to a better understanding...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Łuczaj, Łukasz, Jug-Dujaković, Marija, Dolina, Katija, Jeričević, Mirjana, Vitasović-Kosić, Ivana
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6440087/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30922334
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13002-019-0297-0
_version_ 1783407329217085440
author Łuczaj, Łukasz
Jug-Dujaković, Marija
Dolina, Katija
Jeričević, Mirjana
Vitasović-Kosić, Ivana
author_facet Łuczaj, Łukasz
Jug-Dujaković, Marija
Dolina, Katija
Jeričević, Mirjana
Vitasović-Kosić, Ivana
author_sort Łuczaj, Łukasz
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Archipelagos of islands have played an important role in shaping some of the paradigms of biology, including the theory of the evolution of species. Later, their importance in biology was further emphasised by the theory of island biogeography, which contributed to a better understanding of the shaping of species richness not only on real islands, but on isolated habitat islands as well. Although ethnobotany is a well-established discipline, patterns of knowledge about plant uses in archipelagos have never been quantitatively analysed, and the whole concept has been only briefly mentioned in the ethnobiological context. The aim of our study was to record which taxa of wild vegetables have been consumed in the Adriatic islands and to establish if such variables as island size, population size, flora or its isolation are correlated with the number of wild vegetables used. METHODS: We interviewed 225 people (15 from each island). RESULTS: Altogether, the use of 89 species of wild vegetables has been recorded. The largest number of wild vegetables is eaten on the islands of Korčula, Vis and Šolta, and the lowest on Ugljan, Cres and Dugi Otok. The studied independent variables had a small and statistically not significant effect on the wild vegetable list length. The most visible effect was an increasing trend from north-west to south-east, overrunning the typical biogeographical island patterns. Moreover, one of the large and well-populated islands, Korčula, showed an ‘unusually’ high level of wild vegetable use. We hypothesise that the current use of so many species on this island has been maintained by the inhabitants’ awareness that they are the holders of relic knowledge, an awareness reiterated by ethnographic and popular publications, as well as a strong history of famine. The most interesting edible species used in the Adriatic islands are Bunium alpinum, Cytinus hypocystis (both mainly on Pašman), Lotus edulis (on Vis) and Posidonia oceanica (on Vis and Korčula). CONCLUSIONS: The recorded relationships between the demographic and geographical features of the islands were statistically not significant. We assume that cultural and historical factors diversifying the use of plants in particular islands are stronger than the above-mentioned measurable variables.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-6440087
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2019
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-64400872019-04-11 The ethnobotany and biogeography of wild vegetables in the Adriatic islands Łuczaj, Łukasz Jug-Dujaković, Marija Dolina, Katija Jeričević, Mirjana Vitasović-Kosić, Ivana J Ethnobiol Ethnomed Research BACKGROUND: Archipelagos of islands have played an important role in shaping some of the paradigms of biology, including the theory of the evolution of species. Later, their importance in biology was further emphasised by the theory of island biogeography, which contributed to a better understanding of the shaping of species richness not only on real islands, but on isolated habitat islands as well. Although ethnobotany is a well-established discipline, patterns of knowledge about plant uses in archipelagos have never been quantitatively analysed, and the whole concept has been only briefly mentioned in the ethnobiological context. The aim of our study was to record which taxa of wild vegetables have been consumed in the Adriatic islands and to establish if such variables as island size, population size, flora or its isolation are correlated with the number of wild vegetables used. METHODS: We interviewed 225 people (15 from each island). RESULTS: Altogether, the use of 89 species of wild vegetables has been recorded. The largest number of wild vegetables is eaten on the islands of Korčula, Vis and Šolta, and the lowest on Ugljan, Cres and Dugi Otok. The studied independent variables had a small and statistically not significant effect on the wild vegetable list length. The most visible effect was an increasing trend from north-west to south-east, overrunning the typical biogeographical island patterns. Moreover, one of the large and well-populated islands, Korčula, showed an ‘unusually’ high level of wild vegetable use. We hypothesise that the current use of so many species on this island has been maintained by the inhabitants’ awareness that they are the holders of relic knowledge, an awareness reiterated by ethnographic and popular publications, as well as a strong history of famine. The most interesting edible species used in the Adriatic islands are Bunium alpinum, Cytinus hypocystis (both mainly on Pašman), Lotus edulis (on Vis) and Posidonia oceanica (on Vis and Korčula). CONCLUSIONS: The recorded relationships between the demographic and geographical features of the islands were statistically not significant. We assume that cultural and historical factors diversifying the use of plants in particular islands are stronger than the above-mentioned measurable variables. BioMed Central 2019-03-29 /pmc/articles/PMC6440087/ /pubmed/30922334 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13002-019-0297-0 Text en © The Author(s). 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Łuczaj, Łukasz
Jug-Dujaković, Marija
Dolina, Katija
Jeričević, Mirjana
Vitasović-Kosić, Ivana
The ethnobotany and biogeography of wild vegetables in the Adriatic islands
title The ethnobotany and biogeography of wild vegetables in the Adriatic islands
title_full The ethnobotany and biogeography of wild vegetables in the Adriatic islands
title_fullStr The ethnobotany and biogeography of wild vegetables in the Adriatic islands
title_full_unstemmed The ethnobotany and biogeography of wild vegetables in the Adriatic islands
title_short The ethnobotany and biogeography of wild vegetables in the Adriatic islands
title_sort ethnobotany and biogeography of wild vegetables in the adriatic islands
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6440087/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30922334
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13002-019-0297-0
work_keys_str_mv AT łuczajłukasz theethnobotanyandbiogeographyofwildvegetablesintheadriaticislands
AT jugdujakovicmarija theethnobotanyandbiogeographyofwildvegetablesintheadriaticislands
AT dolinakatija theethnobotanyandbiogeographyofwildvegetablesintheadriaticislands
AT jericevicmirjana theethnobotanyandbiogeographyofwildvegetablesintheadriaticislands
AT vitasovickosicivana theethnobotanyandbiogeographyofwildvegetablesintheadriaticislands
AT łuczajłukasz ethnobotanyandbiogeographyofwildvegetablesintheadriaticislands
AT jugdujakovicmarija ethnobotanyandbiogeographyofwildvegetablesintheadriaticislands
AT dolinakatija ethnobotanyandbiogeographyofwildvegetablesintheadriaticislands
AT jericevicmirjana ethnobotanyandbiogeographyofwildvegetablesintheadriaticislands
AT vitasovickosicivana ethnobotanyandbiogeographyofwildvegetablesintheadriaticislands