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Taxonomic affiliation influences the selection of medicinal plants among people from semi-arid and humid regions—a proposition for the evaluation of utilitarian equivalence in Northeast Brazil

BACKGROUND: This study sought to investigate the occurrence of taxonomic patterns between semi-arid and humid regions, verifying how the taxonomic affiliation can influence the selection of plants for medicinal purposes and act as a selection criterion. METHODS: The relationship between the taxonomi...

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Autores principales: Reinaldo, Rafael, Albuquerque, Ulysses, Medeiros, Patrícia
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7413083/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32832277
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9664
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author Reinaldo, Rafael
Albuquerque, Ulysses
Medeiros, Patrícia
author_facet Reinaldo, Rafael
Albuquerque, Ulysses
Medeiros, Patrícia
author_sort Reinaldo, Rafael
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: This study sought to investigate the occurrence of taxonomic patterns between semi-arid and humid regions, verifying how the taxonomic affiliation can influence the selection of plants for medicinal purposes and act as a selection criterion. METHODS: The relationship between the taxonomic affiliation and the selection of medicinal plants with four different communities was analyzed; two of them associated with a seasonally dry tropical forest and the other two associated with a tropical rain forest. We used the Utilitarian Equivalence Model (transposing the concept of ecological equivalence, proposed by Odum, for ethnobotany) to test the hypothesis that species that have the same taxonomic affiliation tend to have the same therapeutic applications in different environments (utilitarian equivalence). In addition, we used the Utilitarian Redundancy Model to verify whether, within the same medical system, plants of the same taxonomic affiliation tend to be redundant (treating the same diseases). RESULTS: We found that a pair of plants of the same genus were 9.25 times more likely to be equivalent than a different genus pair (OR = 9.25, CI [1.68–51.02], p < 0.05). When we analyzed the species used by the same population, the chances of a pair having similar therapeutic uses (utilitarian redundancy) increased when they were species of the same family (OR = 1.94, CI [1.06−3.53]; p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: These findings confirm the hypothesis that there is an influence of taxonomic affiliation, in terms of genera and family, on the selection of medicinal plants in semi-arid and humid areas in Northeast Brazil. In addition, our Utilitarian Equivalence Model can be an important tool in the search for more common selection criteria, in order to identify the shared characteristics among the equivalent pairs and consequently the main types of perceptions or stimuli that led to the inclusion of such species in local pharmacopoeias.
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spelling pubmed-74130832020-08-21 Taxonomic affiliation influences the selection of medicinal plants among people from semi-arid and humid regions—a proposition for the evaluation of utilitarian equivalence in Northeast Brazil Reinaldo, Rafael Albuquerque, Ulysses Medeiros, Patrícia PeerJ Anthropology BACKGROUND: This study sought to investigate the occurrence of taxonomic patterns between semi-arid and humid regions, verifying how the taxonomic affiliation can influence the selection of plants for medicinal purposes and act as a selection criterion. METHODS: The relationship between the taxonomic affiliation and the selection of medicinal plants with four different communities was analyzed; two of them associated with a seasonally dry tropical forest and the other two associated with a tropical rain forest. We used the Utilitarian Equivalence Model (transposing the concept of ecological equivalence, proposed by Odum, for ethnobotany) to test the hypothesis that species that have the same taxonomic affiliation tend to have the same therapeutic applications in different environments (utilitarian equivalence). In addition, we used the Utilitarian Redundancy Model to verify whether, within the same medical system, plants of the same taxonomic affiliation tend to be redundant (treating the same diseases). RESULTS: We found that a pair of plants of the same genus were 9.25 times more likely to be equivalent than a different genus pair (OR = 9.25, CI [1.68–51.02], p < 0.05). When we analyzed the species used by the same population, the chances of a pair having similar therapeutic uses (utilitarian redundancy) increased when they were species of the same family (OR = 1.94, CI [1.06−3.53]; p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: These findings confirm the hypothesis that there is an influence of taxonomic affiliation, in terms of genera and family, on the selection of medicinal plants in semi-arid and humid areas in Northeast Brazil. In addition, our Utilitarian Equivalence Model can be an important tool in the search for more common selection criteria, in order to identify the shared characteristics among the equivalent pairs and consequently the main types of perceptions or stimuli that led to the inclusion of such species in local pharmacopoeias. PeerJ Inc. 2020-08-04 /pmc/articles/PMC7413083/ /pubmed/32832277 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9664 Text en © 2020 Reinaldo et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Anthropology
Reinaldo, Rafael
Albuquerque, Ulysses
Medeiros, Patrícia
Taxonomic affiliation influences the selection of medicinal plants among people from semi-arid and humid regions—a proposition for the evaluation of utilitarian equivalence in Northeast Brazil
title Taxonomic affiliation influences the selection of medicinal plants among people from semi-arid and humid regions—a proposition for the evaluation of utilitarian equivalence in Northeast Brazil
title_full Taxonomic affiliation influences the selection of medicinal plants among people from semi-arid and humid regions—a proposition for the evaluation of utilitarian equivalence in Northeast Brazil
title_fullStr Taxonomic affiliation influences the selection of medicinal plants among people from semi-arid and humid regions—a proposition for the evaluation of utilitarian equivalence in Northeast Brazil
title_full_unstemmed Taxonomic affiliation influences the selection of medicinal plants among people from semi-arid and humid regions—a proposition for the evaluation of utilitarian equivalence in Northeast Brazil
title_short Taxonomic affiliation influences the selection of medicinal plants among people from semi-arid and humid regions—a proposition for the evaluation of utilitarian equivalence in Northeast Brazil
title_sort taxonomic affiliation influences the selection of medicinal plants among people from semi-arid and humid regions—a proposition for the evaluation of utilitarian equivalence in northeast brazil
topic Anthropology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7413083/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32832277
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.9664
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