Short-term temporal analysis and children's knowledge of the composition of important medicinal plants: the structural core hypothesis

Abstract

Background Measures of the importance of medicinal plants have long been used in ethnobotany and ethnobiology to understand the influence of social-ecological system factors in the formation of individuals’ differential knowledge and use. However, there is still a gap in empirical studies that seek to understand the temporal aspects of this process. Methods To overcome this issue, we used the concept of the structural core of medicinal plants, a theoretical-evolutionary model, which argues that the importance of medicinal plant resources is related to the increase in individual and population fitness. It represents the set of the most effective and available resources that would treat the most common diseases in an environment. This composition of knowledge would be conservative over space and time. To test these questions, we hypothesized that the composition of the structural core remains constant during temporal changes in a social-ecological context, and that the composition of the infantile structural core (new generation) is similar to that of the adults (older generation). For 2 years, we tracked the structure of important medicinal plants among the same 49 residents of a community located in Vale do Catimbau in Pernambuco, Brazil. We also compared the importance of the medicinal plants among two different generations, children/adolescents and adults, in the same space/time context. Results and Conclusion Our results refuted both hypotheses. Regarding the composition of important medicinal plants through temporal variations and for children's learning, our results were not predicted by the model. This suggests that the structural core should not be regarded as a conservative phenomenon, but rather a congenital, dynamic, and plastic occurrence that has adapted to configure itself as a short-term population response to the treatment of local diseases.

Core-periphery structure of a medicinal botanical system in Uruguay

“…In addition, these observations have also been highlighted for food botanical resources, such as the diversity of ethnospecies of "yuca" (Manihot esculenta) in rural communities [35]. Thus, employing network analysis methods, the re ections based on extensive ethnobotanical surveys agree with the coreperiphery structure observed in this study [18,[28][29][30][31][32]. Now, if the core-periphery structure is supported, the question arises: What might be the possible reasons for consensus on the core species?…”

Diversity, distribution, and sustainability of traditional medicinal plants in Kaski district, western Nepal

“…Other information regarding use, collection sites, and preparation methods was restricted to a very few participants. This demonstrates the gap in knowledge transmission, a common threat to traditional knowledge observed elsewhere (Geissler et al, 2002;Bruschi et al, 2019;Sousa et al, 2022).…”

Understanding old herbal secrets: The renaissance of traditional medicinal plants beyond the twenty classic species?

“…Beyond the aforementioned lack of research on integrating medicinal herbs into environmental education in Central Europe (except Malatinszky, 2007;Azevedo et al, 2015), we identified interesting experiences in the Latin American dialogues on critical environmental pedagogy after Paulo Freire and Enrique Leff that address the intertwined environmental and educational crises (e.g., de Oliveira Martins and Ramos Araujo, 2021) and successfully integrate traditional knowledge of medicinal plants into rural school biology curricula in southern Brazil (Vinholi Júnior and Gonçalves de Azevedo, 2020). There is evidence that this practice reduces the distance both between school and regional culture and between school and everyday life, preserving cultural identity, traditional knowledge of medicinal plants, their meaning, symbolism, magic and reality (Vinholi Júnior and Vargas, 2014;Vinholi Júnior and Vargas, 2015;Souza Silva and Santos Baptista, 2018;Sousa et al, 2022;Ursi et al, 2018). In addition, the use of medicinal plants as an "educational tool" increases environmental literacy, including species knowledge, and uses the school's immediate environment as a triple didactic resource: First, to explore and discover the world through observation and contact; second, as a starting point for the development of integrated learning projects; and third, as a means to transform desires and feelings into active proposals, opportunities to change reality, and meaningful learning as a basis for emancipated citizenship (Säumel et al, 2017;Vinholi Júnior and Gonçalves de Azevedo, 2020).…”