A model to analyse the ecology and diversity of ethnobotanical resources: case study for Granada Province, Spain

Abstract

In recent decades, a number of ethnobotanical studies have been developed in many territories, but only a few studies deal with the ecology of the botanical resources, apart from those focused on the so-called ethnoecology, i.e., on the local perceptions of the ecological issues of used plants and their environment. Ethnobotanical resources are known by local people and are normally gathered from the wild, therefore altering the environment in which they grow. From a performed database of all ethnobotanical resources used in Granada Province (South Spain), we analysed several botanical issues, such as the main represented botanical families, biological types, and the biological spectrum. Complementing this classical analysis, in order to establish a new model to know which habitats are more visited and therefore altered by plant collections, we performed an ecological study. For this study, an ecological adscription of the botanical resources was made on the basis of the phytosociological method. Some important questions for us developed during our long time field ethnobotanical work are analysed and commented. For example, the fact that generally people do not gather many plants from mountain summits, only a few medicinal plants without a relative-substitute in lowlands. Differences of the visited habitats in order to collect medicinal or edible wild plants are also analysed. A final brief analysis deals with the relation of the ecology of some ethnobotanical resources with their chemical compounds, focusing on alkaloidic plants: most plants with alkaloid generally grow in nitrogen-rich soils in which any type of nitrophilous vegetation is developed.