Best practice in research: Consensus Statement on Ethnopharmacological Field Studies – ConSEFS

Heinrich, Michael; Lardos, Andreas; Leonti, Marco; Weckerle, Caroline S.; Willcox, Merlin; Applequist, Wendy L.; Ladio, Ana Haydeé; Long, Chunlin; Mukherjee, Pulok K.; Stafford, Gary L

doi:10.1016/j.jep.2017.08.015

Cited by 137 publications

(91 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…The methodology of the study was in accord with PSES. Most of the methodological recommendations for ethnopharmacological field studies were adhered to (Heinrich et al, 2018;Weckerle et al, 2018). The short duration of the survey (3 months in early spring) was due to the heavy workload of DP during the rest of the year (Stucki et al, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethnoveterinary knowledge of farmers in bilingual regions of Switzerland – is there potential to extend veterinary options to reduce antimicrobial use?

Mertenat

Cero

Vogl

et al. 2020

Journal of Ethnopharmacology

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A B S T R A C TEthnopharmacological relevance: In the pre-antibiotic era, a broad spectrum of medicinal plants was used to treat livestock. This knowledge was neglected in European veterinary medicine for decades but kept alive by farmers. Emergence of multidrug resistant bacterial strains requires a severely restricted use of antibiotics in veterinary medicine. We conducted a survey on the ethnoveterinary knowledge of farmers in the bilingual (French and German speaking) Western region of Switzerland, namely the cantons of Fribourg, Neuchâtel and Jura, and in the French speaking part of the canton of Bern. Aim of the study: To find out whether differences exist in plants used by farmers in French speaking and bilingual regions of Switzerland as compared to our earlier studies conducted in Switzerland. Additional focus was on plants that are used in diseases which commonly are treated with antimicrobials, on plants used in skin afflictions, and on plants used in animal species such as horses, for which the range of veterinary medicinal products is limited. Material and methods: We conducted in 2015 semistructured interviews with 62 dialog partners, mainly cattle keeping farmers but also 18 horse keeping farmers. Of these, 41 were native French (FNS) and 21 native German speakers (GNS). Detailed information about homemade herbal remedies (plant species, plant part, manufacturing process) and the corresponding use reports (target animal species, category of use, route of administration, dosage, source of knowledge, frequency of use, last time of use and farmers satisfaction) were collected. Results: A total of 345 homemade remedies were reported, of which 240 contained only one plant species (Homemade Single Species Herbal Remedy Reports; HSHR). A total of 289 use reports (UR) were mentioned for the 240 HSHR, and they comprised 77 plant species belonging to 41 botanical families. Of these, 35 plant species were solely reported from FNS, 20 from GNS, and 22 from both. Taking into account earlier ethnoveterinary studies conducted in Switzerland only 10 (FNS) and 6 (GNS) plant species connected with 7% of FNS and GNS UR respectively were "unique" to the respective language group.The majority of the UR (219) was for treatment of cattle, while 38 UR were intended to treat horses. The most UR were for treatment of gastrointestinal and skin diseases. The most frequently mentioned plants were Linum usitatissimum L., Coffea L., Matricaria chamomilla L., Camellia sinensis (L.) Kuntze, and Quercus robur L. for gastrointestinal diseases, and Calendula officinalis L., Hypericum perforatum L. and Sanicula europaea L. for skin afflictions. Conclusion: No clear differences were found between the medicinal plants used by French native speakers and German native speakers. Several of the reported plants seem to be justified to widen the spectrum of veterinary T therapeutic options in gastrointestinal and dermatological disorders in cattle and horses, and to reduce, at least to a certain degree, the need for antibiotic treatments. Our...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethnoveterinary knowledge of farmers in bilingual regions of Switzerland – is there potential to extend veterinary options to reduce antimicrobial use?

Mertenat

Cero

Vogl

et al. 2020

Journal of Ethnopharmacology

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“…Usage encompasses the parts of the plants used, the modes of preparation, and the modes of administration or application, each per therapeutic application. Medicinal applications are described both by standard scientific use categories and by the emic rationale (i.e., culturally meaningful categories [60]). For example, the emic category of asumid or "cold" used among Amazigh communities in Morocco encompasses ailments ranging from the musculoskeletal, gynaecological and respiratory etic categories [61].…”

Section: Is Shared Plant Use Homologous?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, ethnopharmacological accounts are notorious for not giving enough context of the medical practices in which therapeutic materials are used, and lists provided may be restricted to a group of organisms [73,78,101]. Efforts are being made to set methodological guidelines and data standards, increasing the quality ethnobotanical and ethnomedicinal data collection and providing quality criteria for the selection of literature [60,101]. Meanwhile, for some applications where whole ethnopharmacopoeias are considered, it might be appropriate to use large data sets compiled using data from herbarium vouchers to complement the ethnobotanical literature [102].…”

Section: Data Availabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative phylogenetic methods and the cultural evolution of medicinal plant use

2018

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Human life depends on plant biodiversity and the ways in which plants are used are culturally determined. Whilst anthropologists have used phylogenetic comparative methods (PCMs) to gain an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the evolution of political, religious, social and material culture, plant use has been almost entirely neglected. Medicinal plants are of special interest because of their role in maintaining people's health across the world. PCMs in particular, and cultural evolutionary theory in general, provide a framework in which to study the diversity of medicinal plant applications cross-culturally, and to infer changes in plant use over time. These methods can be applied to single medicinal plants as well as the entire set of plants used by a culture for medicine, and they account for the non-independence of data when testing for floristic, cultural or other drivers of plant use. With cultural, biological and linguistic diversity under threat, gaining a deeper and broader understanding of the variation of medicinal plant use through time and space is pressing.

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“…It is not intended as a methods manual, but rather to communicate lessons learned by a group of researchers and insights obtained by acting as referees to pinpoint potential pitfalls during planning, conducting and analysing field research. While complementary to the consensus statement on ethnopharmacological field studies (ConSEFS) (see Heinrich et al, 2017) this article is more specific to the requirements of the Journal of Ethnopharmacology and goes more into details.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recommended standards for conducting and reporting ethnopharmacological field studies

Weckerle

Boer

Puri

et al. 2018

Journal of Ethnopharmacology

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158

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Ethnopharmacological relevance: What are the minimum methodological and conceptual requirements for an ethnopharmacological field study? How can the results of ethnopharmacological field studies be reported so that researchers with different backgrounds can draw on the results and develop new research questions and projects? And how should these field data be presented to get accepted in a scientific journal such as the Journal of Ethnopharmacology? The objective of this commentary is to create a reference that covers the basic standards necessary during planning, conducting and reporting of field research. Materials and methods: We focus on conducting and reporting ethnopharmacological field studies on medicinal plants or materia medica and associated knowledge of a specific people or region.The article highlights the most frequent problems and pitfalls, and draws on published literature, fieldwork experience, and extensive insights from peer-review of field studies. Results: Research needs to be ethical and legal, and follow local and national regulations. Primary ethnopharmacological field data need to be collected and presented in a transparent and comprehensible way. In short this includes: 1) Relevant and concise research questions, 2) Thorough literature study encompassing all available information on the study site from different disciplines, 3) Appropriate methods to answer the research questions, 4) Proper plant use documentation, unambiguously linked to voucher specimens, and 5) Qualitative and quantitative analyses of the collected data, the latter relying on use-reports as basic units. Conclusion: Although not exhaustive, we provide an overview of the necessary main issues to consider for field research and data reporting including a list of minimal standards and recommendations for best practices. For methodological details and how to correctly apply specific methods, we refer to further reading of suggested textbooks and methods manuals.

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Best practice in research: Consensus Statement on Ethnopharmacological Field Studies – ConSEFS

Cited by 137 publications

References 22 publications

Ethnoveterinary knowledge of farmers in bilingual regions of Switzerland – is there potential to extend veterinary options to reduce antimicrobial use?

Ethnoveterinary knowledge of farmers in bilingual regions of Switzerland – is there potential to extend veterinary options to reduce antimicrobial use?

Comparative phylogenetic methods and the cultural evolution of medicinal plant use

Recommended standards for conducting and reporting ethnopharmacological field studies

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