ArticlePloS one2014
Ethnobotanical knowledge is vastly under-documented in northwestern South America.
Article in PloS one, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed.
- The forest of knowledge under global change.Nature · 2026Article
- From healing landscapes to biocultural conservation: the role of Ficus septica in karst ecosystems of South Sulawesi, Indonesia.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2026Article
- Ethnobotanical documentation and conservation assessment of medicinal plants used by the Somali community in Karamara forest patches, Eastern Ethiopia.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2026Article
- Traditional medicinal plant based remedies for common ailments in Menz Keya Gebreal District, North Shewa Zone, Ethiopia.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2025Article
- What affects the sustainability of a non-timber forest product value chain? A case study of an endemic palm harvested by local communities in Brazil.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2025Article
- The global relevance of locally grounded ethnobiology.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2024Article
- Prioritizing Colombian plant genetic resources for investment in research using indicators about the geographic origin, vulnerability status, economic benefits, and food security importance.Biodiversity and conservation · 2023Article
- Diversity of Useful Plants in Cabo Verde Islands: A Biogeographic and Conservation Perspective.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Traditional medicinal knowledge and practices among the tribal communities of Thakht-e-Sulaiman Hills, Pakistan.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2021Article
- Review
- Language extinction triggers the loss of unique medicinal knowledge.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Afrocolombian Struggles for Food, Land, and Culture: The Case of El Tiple.Environmental engineering science · 2021Article
- Maximum levels of global phylogenetic diversity efficiently capture plant services for humankind.Nature ecology & evolution · 2021Article
- Colombia's bioregions as a source of useful plants.PloS one · 2021Article
- Eighty-four per cent of all Amazonian arboreal plant individuals are useful to humans.PloS one · 2021Article
- Ethnomedicinal Plant Knowledge of the Karen in Thailand.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
- Plants used by the rural community of Bananal, Mato Grosso, Brazil: Aspects of popular knowledge.PloS one · 2019Article
- Astonishing diversity-the medicinal plant markets of Bogotá, Colombia.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2018Article
- Plant Cuttings.Annals of botany · 2018Article
- An ethnopharmacological study of aromatic Uyghur medicinal plants in Xinjiang, China.Pharmaceutical biology · 2017Article
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4 authors.
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Abstract
A main objective of ethnobotany is to document traditional knowledge about plants before it disappears. However, little is known about the coverage of past ethnobotanical studies and thus about how well the existing literature covers the overall traditional knowledge of different human groups. To bridge this gap, we investigated ethnobotanical data-collecting efforts across four countries (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia), three ecoregions (Amazon, Andes, Chocó), and several human groups (including Amerindians, mestizos, and Afro-Americans). We used palms (Arecaceae) as our model group because of their usefulness and pervasiveness in the ethnobotanical literature. We carried out a large number of field interviews (n = 2201) to determine the coverage and quality of palm ethnobotanical data in the existing ethnobotanical literature (n = 255) published over the past 60 years. In our fieldwork in 68 communities, we collected 87,886 use reports and documented 2262 different palm uses and 140 useful palm species. We demonstrate that traditional knowledge on palm uses is vastly under-documented across ecoregions, countries, and human groups. We suggest that the use of standardized data-collecting protocols in wide-ranging ethnobotanical fieldwork is a promising approach for filling critical information gaps. Our work contributes to the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and emphasizes the need for signatory nations to the Convention on Biological Diversity to respond to these information gaps. Given our findings, we hope to stimulate the formulation of clear plans to systematically document ethnobotanical knowledge in northwestern South America and elsewhere before it vanishes.
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