Department of Botany, Faculty of Biotechnology, University of Rzeszów, ul. Pigonia 1, 35-310, Rzeszów, Poland.
Institute for Adriatic Crops and Karst Reclamation, Put Duilova 11, 21000, Split, Croatia.
J Ethnobiol Ethnomed. 2019 Mar 29;15(1):18. doi: 10.1186/s13002-019-0297-0.
Archipelagos of islands have played an important role in shaping some of the paradigms of biology, including the theory of the evolution of species. Later, their importance in biology was further emphasised by the theory of island biogeography, which contributed to a better understanding of the shaping of species richness not only on real islands, but on isolated habitat islands as well. Although ethnobotany is a well-established discipline, patterns of knowledge about plant uses in archipelagos have never been quantitatively analysed, and the whole concept has been only briefly mentioned in the ethnobiological context. The aim of our study was to record which taxa of wild vegetables have been consumed in the Adriatic islands and to establish if such variables as island size, population size, flora or its isolation are correlated with the number of wild vegetables used.
We interviewed 225 people (15 from each island).
Altogether, the use of 89 species of wild vegetables has been recorded. The largest number of wild vegetables is eaten on the islands of Korčula, Vis and Šolta, and the lowest on Ugljan, Cres and Dugi Otok. The studied independent variables had a small and statistically not significant effect on the wild vegetable list length. The most visible effect was an increasing trend from north-west to south-east, overrunning the typical biogeographical island patterns. Moreover, one of the large and well-populated islands, Korčula, showed an 'unusually' high level of wild vegetable use. We hypothesise that the current use of so many species on this island has been maintained by the inhabitants' awareness that they are the holders of relic knowledge, an awareness reiterated by ethnographic and popular publications, as well as a strong history of famine. The most interesting edible species used in the Adriatic islands are Bunium alpinum, Cytinus hypocystis (both mainly on Pašman), Lotus edulis (on Vis) and Posidonia oceanica (on Vis and Korčula).
The recorded relationships between the demographic and geographical features of the islands were statistically not significant. We assume that cultural and historical factors diversifying the use of plants in particular islands are stronger than the above-mentioned measurable variables.
群岛在塑造生物学的一些范式方面发挥了重要作用，包括物种进化理论。后来，岛屿生物地理学理论进一步强调了它们的重要性，这有助于更好地理解不仅在真正的岛屿上，而且在孤立的栖息地岛屿上物种丰富度的形成。尽管民族植物学是一个成熟的学科，但关于岛屿植物利用模式的知识从未进行过定量分析，整个概念在民族生物学背景下也只是被简要提及。我们研究的目的是记录在亚得里亚海岛屿上被食用的野生蔬菜种类，并确定岛屿大小、人口规模、植物区系或其隔离等变量是否与野生蔬菜的使用数量相关。
我们采访了 225 人（每个岛屿 15 人）。
总共记录了 89 种野生蔬菜的使用情况。食用野生蔬菜最多的岛屿是科尔丘拉岛、维斯岛和索尔特岛，食用最少的岛屿是乌格连岛、克雷斯岛和杜伊托岛。所研究的独立变量对野生蔬菜清单长度的影响很小且无统计学意义。最明显的影响是从西北向东南的趋势，超过了典型的生物地理岛屿模式。此外，一个人口众多的大型岛屿科尔丘拉岛表现出了“异常”高的野生蔬菜使用水平。我们假设，该岛目前对如此多物种的使用是由居民意识到他们是遗留知识的持有者维持的，这种意识通过民族志和大众出版物以及强烈的饥荒历史得到了重申。在亚得里亚海岛屿上使用的最有趣的食用物种是高山毛茛、Cytinus hypocystis（主要在帕什曼使用）、Lotus edulis（在维斯使用）和 Posidonia oceanica（在维斯和科尔丘拉使用）。
记录的岛屿人口和地理特征之间的关系在统计学上没有意义。我们假设，使特定岛屿上植物使用多样化的文化和历史因素比上述可衡量的变量更强。
