1 research outputs found
Traditional knowledge and cultural importance of Borassus aethiopum Mart. in Benin: interacting effects of socio-demographic attributes and multi-scale abundance
ResearchBackground: Eliciting factors affecting distribution of traditional knowledge (TK) and cultural importance of plant
resources is central in ethnobiology. Socio-demographic attributes and ecological apparency hypothesis (EAH) have
been widely documented as drivers of TK distribution, but their synergistic effect is poorly documented. Here, we
focused on Borassus aethiopum, a socio-economic important agroforestry palm in Africa, analyzing relationships
between the number of use-reports and cultural importance on one hand, and informant socio-demographic
attributes (age category and gender) on the other hand, considering the EAH at multi-scale contexts. Our
hypothesis is that effects of socio-demographic attributes on use-reports and cultural importance are shaped by
both local (village level) and regional (chorological region level) apparency of study species. We expected so
because distribution of knowledge on a resource in a community correlates to the versatility in the resource
utilization but also connections among communities within a region.
Methods: Nine hundred ninety-two face-to-face individual semi-structured interviews were conducted in six villages of
low versus high local abundance of B. aethiopum spanning three chorological regions (humid, sub-humid and semiarid)
also underlying a gradient of increasing distribution and abundance of B. aethiopum. Number of use-reports and
score of importance of uses of B. aethiopum were recorded in six use-categories including medicine, food, handcraft,
construction, firewood, and ceremonies and rituals. Data were analyzed using Poisson and ordered logistic modelsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio