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To list or not to list? The value and detriment of freelisting in ethnobotanical studies

Abstract

Although freelisting and semi-structured interviews are widespread methods in ethnobotany, few studies quantitatively examine how these methods may bias results. Using a comprehensive ethnobotanical inventory of palm species, uses and names in the Chácobo tribe of Bolivia, we show that interviews elicit more items than freelists, but the effect is sensitive to sample size, item type and data categorization. This implies that even subtle methodological choices may greatly affect reported results.

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Fig. 1: Change in Arecaceae knowledge metrics for each of the 23 participants interviewed with freelisting and semi-structured interview techniques, quantified by the number of species, Chácobo names, uses (by subcategory) and parts reported.
Fig. 2: Informants, scaled by species reported in semi-structed interview methods and freelisting methods.

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Acknowledgements

We greatly thank R. Ortiz, President of the CIRABO, and M. Ortiz, Capitan General of the TCO Chácobo, as well as all our Chácobo friends and counterparts and the whole Chácobo population for all their friendship and support. We thank the National Geographic Society (grant no. 9244-13) for support of the fieldwork. This study was funded by the National Geographic Society (grant no. 9244-13) and endowment funds of the William L. Brown Center at Missouri Botanical Garden, for which we are grateful.

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N.Y.P.Z. and R.W.B. designed the study. N.Y.P.Z., R.W.B., A.L.M.H., G.O.S., M.O.V., D.O.A., J.S.M., M.S.M., S.C., B.C.M., G.C.M., O.R. and E.S. conducted the fieldwork. A.L.M.H. curated and identified the collections and entered the original data. N.Y.P.Z. and R.W.B. analysed the data and wrote the manuscript. R.E.H. conducted the statistical analysis. All authors read, corrected and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Narel Y. Paniagua Zambrana.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figure 1 and Supplementary Results Discussion.

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Supplementary Table 1

Code used to generate analysis presented in Supplementary Figure 1.

Supplementary Table 2

Comma separated text example data file (1 of 2) to be used with Supplementary Table 1.

Supplementary Table 3

Comma separated text example data file (2 of 2) to be used with Supplementary Table 1.

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Zambrana, N.Y.P., Bussmann, R.W., Hart, R.E. et al. To list or not to list? The value and detriment of freelisting in ethnobotanical studies. Nature Plants 4, 201–204 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-018-0128-7

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