Unconventional Food Plants in a Rural Brazilian Community

A study of 56 unconventional food plant species across 29 botanical families in the rural community of São José da Figueira, Durandé, Minas Gerais, Brazil. The research was conducted by Amélia Carlos Tuler using Snowball Sampling with semi-structured interviews. The relative frequency of species citation was evaluated, with Sonchus oleraceus and Xanthosoma sagittifolium having the highest citation frequencies (32.1).

Use Cases

• Analyzing the diversity and relative importance of unconventional food plants based on citation frequencies.
• Studying the relationship between botanical family richness and local food use, as Asteraceae and Lamiaceae contributed 9 and 6 species respectively.
• Investigating the prevalence of native versus non-native plant species in local diets, as 38.2% of cited plants are native.

Strengths

• Documents 56 specific plant species across 29 botanical families.
• Provides quantitative metrics like relative frequency of citation (Fr), with specific values for top species (32.1).
• Distinguishes between native (38.2%) and non-native species.

Limitations

• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Amélia Carlos Tuler via paperswithcode.

Collection Method

Snowball Sampling with semi-structured interviews.

Geography

São José da Figueira, Durandé, Minas Gerais, Brazil.