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Authorship：Lead author  

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

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Authorship：Lead author  

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Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Springer Science and Business Media LLC  

Abstract

Background

The intensification of production and socio-economic changes have accelerated the loss of local traditional knowledge and plant resources. Understanding the distribution and determinants of such biocultural diversity is essential in planning efficient surveys and conservation efforts. Because the concept of biocultural diversity in socio-ecological adaptive systems comprises biological, cultural, and linguistic diversity, linguistic information should serve as a surrogate for the distribution of local biological and cultural diversity. In this study, we spatio-linguistically evaluated the names of local trees and rice landraces recorded in Ehime Prefecture, southwestern Japan.

Methods

Hierarchical clustering was performed separately for the names of local trees and rice landraces. By considering innate flora differences and species having multiple local names, a novel distance index was adopted for local tree names. For the names of rice landraces, Jaccard distance was adopted. V-measure and factor detector analysis were used to evaluate the spatial association between the isogloss maps of the folk nomenclature derived from the clustering and multiple thematic maps.

Results

Local tree names showed stronger spatial association with geographical factors than rice landrace names. One folk nomenclature group of trees overlapped well with the slash-and-burn cultivation area, suggesting a link between the naming of trees and the traditional production system. In contrast, rice landraces exhibited stronger associations with folklore practices. Moreover, influences of road networks and pilgrimages on rice landraces indicated the importance of human mobility and traditional rituals on rice seed transfer. High homogeneity and low completeness in the V-measure analysis indicated that the names of local trees and rice landraces were mostly homogenous within current municipalities and were shared with a couple of adjacent municipalities. The isogloss maps help to illustrate how the biological and cultural diversity of wild trees and rice landraces are distributed. They also help to identify units for inter-municipal collaboration for effective conservation of traditional knowledge related to those plant resources and traditional rice varieties themselves.

Conclusions

Our spatio-linguistic evaluation indicated that complex geographical and sociological processes influence the formation of plant folk nomenclature groups and implies a promising approach using quantitative lexico-statistical analysis to help to identify areas for biocultural diversity conservation.

DOI： 10.1186/s13002-024-00675-y

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Other Link： https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13002-024-00675-y/fulltext.html

Event date： 2023.9

Presentation type：Oral presentation (general)  

Venue：桜美林大学   Country：Japan  

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Event date： 2023.2

Language：Japanese   Presentation type：Oral presentation (general)  

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Event date： 2022.10

Presentation type：Oral presentation (general)  

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Event date： 2022.4

Language：Japanese   Presentation type：Oral presentation (general)  

Venue：オンライン（Zoom）  

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Event date： 2018.9

Presentation type：Poster presentation  

Venue：国立国語研究所  

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Type：Visiting lecture

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