Institute of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, University of Zürich, 8008 Zürich, Switzerland.
Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, 0318 Oslo, Norway; Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
J Ethnopharmacol. 2018 Jan 10;210:125-132. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2017.08.018. Epub 2017 Aug 20.
What are the minimum methodological and conceptual requirements for an ethnopharmacological field study? How can the results of ethnopharmacological field studies be reported so that researchers with different backgrounds can draw on the results and develop new research questions and projects? And how should these field data be presented to get accepted in a scientific journal such as the Journal of Ethnopharmacology? The objective of this commentary is to create a reference that covers the basic standards necessary during planning, conducting and reporting of field research.
We focus on conducting and reporting ethnopharmacological field studies on medicinal plants or materia medica and associated knowledge of a specific people or region. The article highlights the most frequent problems and pitfalls, and draws on published literature, fieldwork experience, and extensive insights from peer-review of field studies.
Research needs to be ethical and legal, and follow local and national regulations. Primary ethnopharmacological field data need to be collected and presented in a transparent and comprehensible way. In short this includes: 1) Relevant and concise research questions, 2) Thorough literature study encompassing all available information on the study site from different disciplines, 3) Appropriate methods to answer the research questions, 4) Proper plant use documentation, unambiguously linked to voucher specimens, and 5) Qualitative and quantitative analyses of the collected data, the latter relying on use-reports as basic units.
Although not exhaustive, we provide an overview of the necessary main issues to consider for field research and data reporting including a list of minimal standards and recommendations for best practices. For methodological details and how to correctly apply specific methods, we refer to further reading of suggested textbooks and methods manuals.
进行民族药理学实地研究需要满足哪些最低的方法学和概念要求？如何报告民族药理学实地研究的结果，以便具有不同背景的研究人员能够利用这些结果并提出新的研究问题和项目？应该如何呈现这些实地数据，以便在《民族药理学杂志》等科学期刊上被接受？本文的目的是创建一个参考，涵盖了在规划、进行和报告实地研究时所需的基本标准。
我们专注于对特定人群或地区的药用植物或药物及其相关知识进行民族药理学实地研究。本文重点强调了最常见的问题和陷阱，并借鉴了已发表的文献、实地工作经验以及对实地研究的同行评审的广泛见解。
研究需要符合伦理和法律要求，并遵循当地和国家的规定。初步的民族药理学实地数据需要以透明和可理解的方式进行收集和呈现。简而言之，这包括：1）相关且简洁的研究问题，2）全面的文献研究，涵盖研究地点来自不同学科的所有可用信息，3）适当的方法来回答研究问题，4）正确的植物使用记录，与凭证标本明确关联，以及 5）对收集数据进行定性和定量分析，后者依赖于使用报告作为基本单位。
尽管不是详尽无遗的，但我们提供了一个概述，其中包括进行实地研究和数据报告所需考虑的必要主要问题，包括最低标准清单和最佳实践建议。对于方法学细节以及如何正确应用特定方法，我们参考了建议的教材和方法手册的进一步阅读。
