Why do people use exotic plants in their local medical systems? A systematic review based on Brazilian local communities.

ABSTRACT: Efforts have been made to understand the processes that lead to the introduction of exotic species into local pharmacopoeias. Among those efforts, the diversification hypothesis predicts that exotic plants are introduced in local medical systems to amplify the repertoire of knowledge related to the treatment of diseases, filling blanks that were not occupied by native species. Based on such hypothesis, this study aimed to contribute to this discussion using the context of local Brazilian populations. We performed a systematic review of Brazilian studies up to 2011 involving medicinal plants, excluding those studies that presented a high risk of bias (because of sampling or plant identification problems). An analysis of similarities (ANOSIM) was conducted in different scales to test for dif

SUBMITTER: Medeiros PM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5617200 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature