Can socioeconomic factors explain the local importance of culturally salient plants in a social-ecological system?

ABSTRACT The aim of this work was to determine whether socioeconomic factors explain the importance of culturally salient plants to social-ecological systems. Extractive communities of the Araripe-Apodi Environmental Protection Area in Northeast Brazil were studied, and a random sample of the population was selected. Quantitative variables (education, age and income) were analyzed using Spearman correlations, while categorical variables (gender and occupation) were analyzed using Mann-Whitney tests. Relationships between socioeconomic factors and the importance of culturally salient plants were all weak. Nevertheless, age influenced the local importance of the largest number of species. Other factors not considered in this study (historical, cultural, ecological, and psychological) may be outstanding predictors of the importance of culturally salient plants and should be studied in future investigations.

摘要：本研究旨在探究社会经济因素能否解释文化显著植物（culturally salient plants）对社会生态系统（social-ecological systems）的重要性。研究以巴西东北部阿拉里皮-阿波迪环境保护区的资源采集型社区为研究对象，随机抽取该区域人群作为样本开展调研。针对受教育程度、年龄与收入水平等定量变量，采用斯皮尔曼相关性分析（Spearman correlations）进行统计检验；针对性别、职业等分类变量，则采用曼-惠特尼检验（Mann-Whitney tests）展开分析。结果表明，社会经济因素与文化显著植物重要性之间的关联均较弱，但年龄对最多物种的本地重要性存在显著影响。本研究未纳入考量的其他因素（历史、文化、生态及心理因素）或可作为文化显著植物重要性的关键预测因子，有待未来研究进一步探讨。