Ethnobiology has become increasingly concerned with applied and normative issues, such as climate change adaptation, forest management, and sustainable agriculture. Applied ethnobiology emphasizes the practical importance of local and traditional knowledge in tackling these issues but thereby also raises complex theoretical questions about the integration of heterogeneous knowledge systems. The aim of this article is to develop a framework for addressing questions of integration through four core domains of philosophy—epistemology, ontology, value theory, and political theory. In each of these dimensions, we argue for a model of “partial overlaps” that acknowledges both substantial similarities and differences between knowledge systems. While overlaps can ground successful collaboration, their partiality requires reflectivity about the limitations of collaboration and co-creation. By outlining such a general and programmatic framework, the article aims to contribute to developing “philosophy of ethnobiology” as a field of interdisciplinary exchange that provides new resources for addressing foundational issues in ethnobiology and also expands the agenda of philosophy of biology.

As a research focused in studies of conservation-induced displacement, ethnobiology has much to contribute towards generating more holistic understandings of the impacts of protected areas upon the lives of resource-dependent peoples around the globe. This paper presents the findings of a case study undertaken in Núcleo Itariru (Southern São Paulo state, Brazil), a unit of Serra do Mar State Park and the site of habitation for a population of approximately 700 peasants. Beginning in 2006, with the enactment of a new conservation initiative, peasants effectively became economically displaced, restricted from access to the natural resources upon which they base their lives and livelihoods. Utilizing ethnobotanical methods, in the form of a freelisting exercise and traveling herbarium survey, the study investigated local environmental knowledge systems as a means of evaluating the human/ landscape relationship in the locale. This paper highlights the value of such an approach for assessing the social and environmental dimensions of displacement, as a supplement to participant observation and ethnographic interviews, and for informing more sustainable conservation policies.

Stories that reference plants occur throughout Indigenous oral traditions. It is widely recognized among local and academic knowledge holders that such stories store and transmit valuable ethnobotanical knowledge. However, there has been little detailed investigation of the quantity and kinds of information conveyed or the ways in which this information is encoded in oral texts. In this paper, we explore in detail the nature of this transmitted ethnobotanical knowledge, investigating the extent to which stories encode and convey information useful for identifying, locating, harvesting, processing, and predicting availability of important plant resources. Using an existing collection of traditional narratives from the Weenhayek of the Bolivian Gran Chaco, we searched for stories about wild plants and plant products. This search yielded a sample of 40 narratives, which were analyzed for the presence of information about plant characteristics, associated ecological cues, habitat and distribution, management, extraction and processing, availability, uses, and worldview (i.e., prescriptions and proscriptions related to plant management, extraction, processing, or use). Results are discussed in light of the constraints imposed by human attentional and memory systems, and their implications for knowledge storage and transmission.

Folk biological classifications and the taxonomic schemes of scientific biology have often been conceived as two monoliths that sometimes correspond and sometimes do not—as, for example, when folk zoologists classify whales as fish. The Lio people of Flores Island describe dugongs (Dugong dugon) as creatures that are half human and half fish, thus, essentially like the European image of mermaids. The characterization relates to a myth, widespread in Southeast Asia, which depicts the animals as deriving from a woman. At the same time, Lio speak of dugongs as, simply, a kind of fish. This apparent inconsistency is reflected in several ways people name dugongs, as well as in sex-differentiable terms and numeral classifiers employed when speaking about the animals. Reviewing different ways Lio describe dugong morphology, this nomenclatural variety is shown to correspond to three complementary models identified as diametric, concentric, and chronological dualism. Finally, I demonstrate how these models are comparable to competing ways of representing relationships among animals in modern biological systematics and discuss the implications of such parallels for ongoing debates about similarity and difference between folk and international biology.

Increasingly, secondary forests in Costa Rica are cleared before having the decades needed to reach maturity. This paper investigates the medicinal and ecological value that a small community in Costa Rica's Northern Zone receives from regenerating secondary forests by presenting a case study of pioneer tree species Vismia macrophylla. Two expert healers within this community described V. macrophylla's antifungal properties; one further demonstrated its harvest, preparation, and application. To  supplement (JETHNO_40n1_Shebitz_Supp.pdf) local medicinal knowledge, we completed a gas chromatography and mass spectrometry analysis of V. macrophylla tissue. We found potential antibiotic efficacy, which we suggest is primarily linked to acetic acid, and identified hexanal, which is recognized as antifungal. We surveyed V. macrophylla demography and surrounding plant diversity in 20-50 m² plots in the primary and secondary forests to better understand the ecological context in which it occurs. We found V. macrophylla grew taller and wider in secondary forests. Furthermore, plant diversity was similar between primary and secondary forest plots with V. macrophylla. Our findings highlight the value of secondary forests in providing medicinally important species, like V. macrophylla, to their neighboring communities as they undergo succession. Our study illustrates how interdisciplinary ethnographic, chemical, and ecological research can be used to promote the sustainable use and preservation of recovering secondary forests for the benefit of the communities they surround.

Ethno-ornithological studies have shown the complexity of indigenous systems of classification of local biota. However, there is still a lack of knowledge about the etymology of bird names used by indigenous peoples in many locations and about the phenomenological meaning of these names. We conducted an extensive literature review of Mapuche bird names and their etymologies. Because of the relative importance of onomatopoeias as the origin of Mapuche bird names, we compared the proportion of onomatopoeic names used by different forest-dwelling indigenous peoples worldwide. We found 219 bird names in Mapuzugun for 92 species and 135 etymologies for 72 different species. Sixty-four (47%) etymologies were onomatopoeic, while 29 (21%) etymologies came from the bird's appearance and 21 (16%) from its behavior. Out of a total of 13 different indigenous peoples examined, only the Mbuti (Congo) showed a higher percentage of onomatopoeic names (67%) than the Mapuche. Using a phenomenological framework, we utilized the notion of “sonic incarnation” to discuss how a bird's voice does not necessarily guide the listener's eyes to it but, instead, the experience of hearing it is equated with “seeing” the bird. Onomatopoeic influence is a key root of the bird names used by different indigenous peoples of the world, including the Mapuche, and it may reflect onomatopoeia's great ability to capture immediacy in the landscape of human-bird encounters.

Most research on the plant genus Phoenix has focused on Phoenix dactylifera (date palm) due to its worldwide economic importance. Comparatively less attention has been devoted to other species within this genus that are also socio-economically important at a local scale, such as Phoenix theophrasti (Cretan date palm). The aim of this paper is to bring focus to this “forgotten” palm through an ethnobotanical survey of its uses by present-day traditional Cretan populations, a review of the archaeological and archaeobotanical evidence of its prehistoric use, and the development of a phytolith key to differentiate among phytoliths produced by P. theophrasti and other palms present in the Mediterranean region. Ethnobotanical data shows that traditional Cretan populations use several parts of P. theophrasti in a variety of ways, including food, weaving, and making spoons. Moreover, and despite a virtual absence of P. theophrasti in the archaeobotanical record, iconographic and textual (Linear B) evidence suggests that this plant may have been used in Crete in Minoan times (c. 3650–1100 BC). The statistical analysis of the morphometric data from phytoliths produced in modern P. theophrasti palms shows significant differences among fruit and leaf phytoliths. The results further show that P. theophrasti phytoliths can be distinguished from those produced by other palms present in the Mediterranean region when both metric and non-metric parameters are considered. Phytolith analyses have, therefore, great potential for identifying past socio-economic uses of P. theophrasti.