Conhecimento, uso e conservação da diversidade vegetal em quatro comunidades ribeirinhas no município Manacapuru, Amazonas

Abstract

Brazil is the country with the largest biodiversity, coupled with a rich ethnic and cultural diversity that has valuable traditional knowledge associated with the use of plants. The Municipality of Manacapuru has rural riverside communities of farmers who are still in touch with the natural diversity to meet their needs: health, food, construction, etc. The aim of this study was to ethnobotanically characterize four riverside communities of the municipality of Manacapuru, Amazonas, Brazil, with respect to the composition and forms of use of the useful plant species. Information was collected from 164 randomly-selected local residents, through semi-structured interviews, participant observation and guided tours. The species were grouped into categories of use. The health problems reported were classified according to the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (CID-10) and levels of agreement were used to identify the main uses of each species. We used the Shannon index for analysis of species diversity, compared the communities through the Jaccard Similarity Quotient (J') and estimated the use value of eacg species. We identified 170 medicinal plants belonging to 65 families. Lamiaceae (14 species), Asteraceae (9 species), Fabaceae and Euphorbiaceae (8 species) were the most common families. The most cited species were Mentha arvensis (mint), Ruta graveolens (rue) and Citrus sinensis (orange). The leaves are the most used parts of the plants and leaf decoctions the most common procedure used to prepare medicaments. The most common problems cited were digestive diseases, respiratory diseases and problems with unclassified symptoms. Plants with agreement indices greater than 25% were Plectranthus amboinicus, Chenopodium ambrosioides, Citrus aurantiifolia, Acmella oleracea, Plectranthus barbatus, Mentha arvensis, Citrus sinensis, Lippia origanoides Lippia alba, Ruta graveolens and Cymbopogon citratus. In other uses, 175 plant species were identified in 59 botanical families. Most plants are used for food, with 66% of the species, followed by trade with 31%, with 17% ornamental and 16% construction. Among the edible species, the fruits represented 62%. The Shannon-Wiener found for the four communities varied from 4.1 to 4.3; shows that there is considerable diversity of species present in the studied communities. The Jaccard similarity index found for the communities was considered high, demonstrating that communities utilize many species in common. Use value (VU) for banana (Musa paradisiaca), mandioca/macaxeira (Manihot esculenta), cupuaçu (Theobroma grandiflorum), tucumã (Astrocaryum aculeatum), manga (Mangifera indica) e laranja (Citrus sinensis) points to these as the most important species for the communities. Agricultural crops conducted by farmers in the communities studied have a wide network of production systems, among which stand out as some subsystems sites, the yards, the barns, the fields and managed forests. These systems are defined as traditional characterized by high diversity of cultivated species, the maintenance is done by family labor, use of local inputs and development of simple technologies. This diversity provides the farmer and his family food for subsistence that also offers great potential for generating income through marketing of agricultural products. The knowledge about plants and their uses is mainly transmitted orally by parents keeping this form of transmission to their children.