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Cited by 34Ethnobotanical and Medicinal Plants StudiesAmazonian Archaeology and EthnohistoryBotany and Plant Ecology Studies

Eighty-four per cent of all Amazonian arboreal plant individuals are useful to humans

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Coelho, Sara D., Levis, Carolina, Baccaro, Fabrício B., Figueiredo, Fernando O. G., Pinassi Antunes, André, ter Steege, Hans, Peña-Claros, Marielos, Clement, Charles R. +1 more·2021·PLOS ONE
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0257875PMC PMC8486103
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Abstract

Plants have been used in Amazonian forests for millennia and some of these plants are disproportionally abundant (hyperdominant). At local scales, people generally use the most abundant plants, which may be abundant as the result of management of indigenous peoples and local communities. However, it is unknown whether plant use is also associated with abundance at larger scales. We used the population sizes of 4,454 arboreal species (trees and palms) estimated from 1946 forest plots and compiled information about uses from 29 Amazonian ethnobotany books and articles published between 1926 and 2013 to investigate the relationship between species usefulness and their population sizes, and how this relationship is influenced by the degree of domestication of arboreal species across Amazonia. We found that half of the arboreal species (2,253) are useful to humans, which represents 84% of the estimated individuals in Amazonian forests. Useful species have mean populations sizes six times larger than non-useful species, and their abundance is related with the probability of usefulness. Incipiently domesticated species are the most abundant. Population size was weakly related to specific uses, but strongly related with the multiplicity of uses. This study highlights the enormous usefulness of Amazonian arboreal species for local peoples. Our findings support the hypothesis that the most abundant plant species have a greater chance to be useful at both local and larger scales, and suggest that although people use the most abundant plants, indigenous people and local communities have contributed to plant abundance through long-term management.

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  • By creating new cultural niches, humans partly modified the Amazonian flora, increasing their food security even during times of past climate change without the need for large-scale deforestation.

    “By creating new cultural niches, humans partly modified the Amazonian flora117,118, increasing their food security even during times of past climate change119,120 without the need for large-scale deforestation117.”

    From Critical transitions in the Amazon forest system (2024) · cites this paper as [118]

    The Introduction (page unavailable) says Indigenous management practices may have changed the abundance of useful Amazonian plants and describes practices that created domesticated forest landscapes. It does not establish that this occurred without large-scale deforestation. The food-security and past-climate-change clause is attached to other citations in the citing sentence, not to this source. (LLM, conf=0.82)

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Authors
Coelho, S. D., Levis, C., Baccaro, F. B., Figueiredo, F. O. G., Pinassi Antunes, A., ter Steege, H., Peña-Claros, M., Clement, C. R., & Schietti, J.
Affiliations
  • Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (BR)
  • Universidade Federal do Amazonas (BR)
Corresponding author
Coelho, Sara D.
ORCID
Venue
PLOS ONE
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Published
2021-10-01
Volume
16
Issue
10
Pages
e0257875
ISSN
1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0257875
PMC
PMC8486103
OpenAlex
W3204398102
Cited by
34
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 7 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 6 · 2021: 1
FWCI
2.92
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • VU Research Portal (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
  • Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling (acceptedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • DRYAD (public-domain)
Funders
  • Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
  • coordenação de aperfeiçoamento de pessoal de nível superior (Finance Code 001, PROEX n. 0742/2020)
  • fundação de amparo à pesquisa do estado do amazonas (PAPAC n. 005/2019)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Ethnobotanical and Medicinal Plants Studies
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Botany and Plant Ecology Studies
Keywords
ethnobotany, Amazonian trees, Arecaceae, arboreal species, species abundance, hyperdominance, plant domestication, indigenous peoples, local communities, forest management
MeSH terms
Domestication, Brazil, Humans, Plants, Ethnobotany, Biodiversity

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