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

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.