Santoro Flávia Rosa, Ferreira Júnior Washington Soares, Araújo Thiago Antônio de Souza, Ladio Ana Haydée, Albuquerque Ulysses Paulino
Laboratory of Applied and Theoretical Ethnobiology, Department of Biology, Federal Rural University of Pernambuco, Dois Irmãos, Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil.
Ecotono Laboratory, Universidad Nacional del Comahue, CONICET, Quintral 1250, Bariloche, Río Negro, Argentina.
PLoS One. 2015 Mar 20;10(3):e0119826. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0119826. eCollection 2015.
Resilience is related to the ability of a system to adjust to disturbances. The Utilitarian Redundancy Model has emerged as a tool for investigating the resilience of local medical systems. The model determines the use of species richness for the same therapeutic function as a facilitator of the maintenance of these systems. However, predictions generated from this model have not yet been tested, and a lack of variables exists for deeper analyses of resilience. This study aims to address gaps in the Utilitarian Redundancy Model and to investigate the resilience of two medical systems in the Brazilian semi-arid zone. As a local illness is not always perceived in the same way that biomedicine recognizes, the term "therapeutic targets" is used for perceived illnesses. Semi-structured interviews with local experts were conducted using the free-listing technique to collect data on known medicinal plants, usage preferences, use of redundant species, characteristics of therapeutic targets, and the perceived severity for each target. Additionally, participatory workshops were conducted to determine the frequency of targets. The medical systems showed high species richness but low levels of species redundancy. However, if redundancy was present, it was the primary factor responsible for the maintenance of system functions. Species richness was positively associated with therapeutic target frequencies and negatively related to target severity. Moreover, information about redundant species seems to be largely idiosyncratic; this finding raises questions about the importance of redundancy for resilience. We stress the Utilitarian Redundancy Model as an interesting tool to be used in studies of resilience, but we emphasize that it must consider the distribution of redundancy in terms of the treatment of important illnesses and the sharing of information. This study has identified aspects of the higher and lower vulnerabilities of medical systems, adding variables that should be considered along with richness and redundancy.
恢复力与系统适应干扰的能力相关。功利冗余模型已成为研究当地医疗系统恢复力的一种工具。该模型将具有相同治疗功能的物种丰富度的利用确定为这些系统维持的促进因素。然而，从该模型产生的预测尚未得到检验，并且缺乏用于深入分析恢复力的变量。本研究旨在填补功利冗余模型中的空白，并调查巴西半干旱地区两个医疗系统的恢复力。由于当地疾病的认知方式并不总是与生物医学的认知方式相同，因此使用“治疗靶点”一词来指代所认知的疾病。通过自由列举技术对当地专家进行半结构化访谈，以收集有关已知药用植物、使用偏好、冗余物种的使用、治疗靶点的特征以及每个靶点的感知严重程度的数据。此外，还举办了参与式研讨会以确定靶点的频率。医疗系统显示出高物种丰富度但物种冗余水平较低。然而，如果存在冗余，它就是维持系统功能的主要因素。物种丰富度与治疗靶点频率呈正相关，与靶点严重程度呈负相关。此外，关于冗余物种的信息似乎很大程度上是特质性的；这一发现引发了关于冗余对恢复力重要性的质疑。我们强调功利冗余模型是用于恢复力研究的一个有趣工具，但我们强调它必须在重要疾病的治疗和信息共享方面考虑冗余的分布。本研究确定了医疗系统较高和较低脆弱性的方面，增加了应与丰富度和冗余一起考虑的变量。
