ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2014
The evolution of traditional knowledge: environment shapes medicinal plant use in Nepal.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Wild food plants of Brazil: a theoretical approach to non-random selection.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2023Pooled it
- Continuity and Change in the Arbëreshë Wild Food Plant Foraging in Inland Southern Italy.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Could non-humans have Traditional Ecological Knowledge? And if so, what should we do about it?Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2026Article
- A multi-algorithm clustering framework to optimize plant-knowledge pattern detection in ethnobotanical research.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2026Article
- Biodiversity drives the choice; linguistic diversity fine-tunes the direction: Ethnofloral megadiversity in the Mexican ethnobotany.PloS one · 2026Article
- Ethnomedicinal plants used for immediate care in Nepal: A cross-cultural review.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2025Review
- Phytochemical and Pharmacological Insights intoMolecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Contrasting modes of cultural evolution: Kra-Dai languages and weaving technologies.Evolutionary human sciences · 2025Article
- Can family structure and contact with natural resources influence young people's knowledge about medicinal plants? An approach in the Northeast of Brazil.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2024Article
- Study of medicinal plants used in ethnoveterinary medical system in riverine areas of Punjab, Pakistan.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2024Article
- Exploring the Pharmacological Potential ofMolecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Influence of socio-demographic factors on medicinal plant knowledge among three selected ethnic groups in south-central Ethiopia.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2024Article
- Keeping their own and integrating the other: medicinal plant use among Ormurs and Pathans in South Waziristan, Pakistan.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2023Article
- Ethnomedicinal plants in Champadevi rural municipality, Okhaldhunga district, Nepal.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2023Article
- Ethnobotanical study on medicinal plant knowledge among three ethnic groups in peri-urban areas of south-central Ethiopia.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2023Article
- Neighbours and relatives: accounting for spatial distribution when testing causal hypotheses in cultural evolution.Evolutionary human sciences · 2023Article
- Sociocultural drivers of mycological knowledge: insights from Wixarika and Mestizo groups in western Mexico.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2022Review
- Short-term temporal analysis and children's knowledge of the composition of important medicinal plants: the structural core hypothesis.Journal of ethnobiology and ethnomedicine · 2022Review
- Historical, archaeological and linguistic evidence test the phylogenetic inference of Viking-Age plant use.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- The Power of Wild Plants in Feeding Humanity: A Meta-Analytic Ethnobotanical Approach in the Catalan Linguistic Area.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
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8 authors.
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Abstract
Traditional knowledge is influenced by ancestry, inter-cultural diffusion and interaction with the natural environment. It is problematic to assess the contributions of these influences independently because closely related ethnic groups may also be geographically close, exposed to similar environments and able to exchange knowledge readily. Medicinal plant use is one of the most important components of traditional knowledge, since plants provide healthcare for up to 80% of the world's population. Here, we assess the significance of ancestry, geographical proximity of cultures and the environment in determining medicinal plant use for 12 ethnic groups in Nepal. Incorporating phylogenetic information to account for plant evolutionary relatedness, we calculate pairwise distances that describe differences in the ethnic groups' medicinal floras and floristic environments. We also determine linguistic relatedness and geographical separation for all pairs of ethnic groups. We show that medicinal uses are most similar when cultures are found in similar floristic environments. The correlation between medicinal flora and floristic environment was positive and strongly significant, in contrast to the effects of shared ancestry and geographical proximity. These findings demonstrate the importance of adaptation to local environments, even at small spatial scale, in shaping traditional knowledge during human cultural evolution.
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