Cross-Cultural Ethnobotanical Assembly as a New Tool for Understanding Medicinal and Culinary Values–The Genus Lycium as A Case Study

• Published in: Frontiers in pharmacology 2021-07, Vol.12, p.708518-708518
• Main Authors: Yao, Ruyu, Heinrich, Michael, Wei, Jianhe, Xiao, Peigen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: ethnobotany; ethnopharmacology; Lycium; medicine and food homology; Pharmacology; traditional use
• ISSN: 1663-9812; 1663-9812
• DOI: 10.3389/fphar.2021.708518

Ethnobotanical knowledge is indispensable for the conservation of global biological integrity, and could provide irreplaceable clues for bioprospecting aiming at new food crops and medicines. This biocultural diversity requires a comprehensive documentation of such intellectual knowledge at local levels. However, without systematically capturing the data, those regional records are fragmented and can hardly be used. In this study, we develop a framework to assemble the cross-cultural ethnobotanical knowledge at a genus level, including capturing the species’ diversity and their cultural importance, integrating their traditional uses, and revealing the intercultural relationship of ethnobotanical data quantitatively. Using such a cross-cultural ethnobotanical assembly, the medicinal and culinary values of the genus Lycium are evaluated. Simultaneously, the analysis highlights the problems and options for a systematic cross-cultural ethnobotanical knowledge assembly. The framework used here could generate baseline data relevant for conservation and sustainable use of plant diversity as well as for bioprospecting within targeting taxa.