The Role of Botanical Families in Medicinal Ethnobotany: A Phylogenetic Perspective

Studies suggesting that medicinal plants are not chosen at random are becoming more common. The goal of this work is to shed light on the role of botanical families in ethnobotany, depicting in a molecular phylogenetic frame the relationships between families and medicinal uses of vascular plants in several Catalan-speaking territories. The simple quantitative analyses for ailments categories and the construction of families and disorders matrix were carried out in this study. A Bayesian approach was used to estimate the over- and underused families in the medicinal flora. Phylogenetically informed analyses were carried out to identify lineages in which there is an overrepresentation of families in a given category of use, i.e., hot nodes. The ethnobotanicity index, at a specific level, was calculated and also adapted to the family level. Two diversity indices to measure the richness of reported taxa within each family were calculated. A total of 47,630 use reports were analysed. These uses are grouped in 120 botanical families. The ethnobotanicity index for this area is 14.44% and the ethnobotanicity index at the family level is 68.21%. The most-reported families are Lamiaceae and Asteraceae and the most reported troubles are disorders of the digestive and nutritional system. Based on the meta-analytic results, indicating hot nodes of useful plants at the phylogenetic level, specific ethnopharmacological research may be suggested, including a phytochemical approach of particularly interesting taxa.

Automated summary

This study explores the relationships between botanical families and medicinal vascular plants using a molecular phylogenetic framework. It includes quantitative analyses, identification of hot nodes, and discussion of plant usage and family richness in ethnobotany.