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Ethnobotanical Knowledge of Edible Plants Amongst Children from Two Rural Communities in Western Mexico

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Abstract

Ethnobotanical knowledge, also known as Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK), of edible plants includes identifying plants using local names and knowledge of specific preparations and ecological characteristics. We analyze children’s ethnobotanical knowledge of 107 species of edible plants in two rural locations in western Mexico and the sociodemographic factors that influence their knowledge. We found a high consensus among the three domains we evaluated. Forty-four species were known to at least 90% of the children. The factors that influence children’s knowledge include age, which was significant in both communities, and other variables such as gender, number of siblings, birth order, occupation and age of mother, occupation and age of father, size of household, and participation in planting the milpa field. These factors were significant in differing ways between the study communities. We found effective transmission of ethnobotanical knowledge to children to be influenced by intergenerational interactions.

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Data Availability

The duplicate voucher specimens of the species used to show the interviewees were taxonomically identified and deposited in the University of Guadalajara ZEA herbarium as reference material, which remains available for research. The data set generated and analyzed during the current study is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Notes

  1. Household types were designated: (a) single parent household: the child lives with his/her mother and siblings, (b) nuclear family household: the child lives with both parents and siblings, and (c) extended family household: the child lives with both parents, siblings, and one or more grandparents.

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Acknowledgements

We are indebted to the people of Chancuellar and Loma de Guadalupe who made this research possible, particularly the children who shared their knowledge generously. Additionally, we have had partial financial support for which we thank the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT) for a doctoral thesis grant to the first author and from the University of Guadalajara through the program Fortalecimiento a la Investigación.

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  1. Departamento de Ecología y Recursos Naturales, Centro Universitario de la Costa Sur, Universidad de Guadalajara, Av. Independencia Nacional 151, Autlán de Navarro 48900, Jalisco, México

    Alondra Flores-Silva, Ramón Cuevas-Guzmán & Miguel Olvera-Vargas

  2. CATIE- Centro Agronómico Tropical de Investigación y Enseñanza, Turrialba, 30501, Costa Rica

    Fernando Casanoves

  3. Department of History, Sociology, and Anthropology, Southern Utah University, Cedar City, UT, USA

    Elizabeth Anne Olson

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  1. Alondra Flores-Silva
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  3. Miguel Olvera-Vargas
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Correspondence to Elizabeth Anne Olson.

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Flores-Silva, A., Cuevas-Guzmán, R., Olvera-Vargas, M. et al. Ethnobotanical Knowledge of Edible Plants Amongst Children from Two Rural Communities in Western Mexico. Hum Ecol 51, 397–407 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-023-00400-5

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