Manuel Pardo de Santayana

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid | UAM · Department of Biology

1. The harvest of wild plants with medicinal uses is increasing globally, both for self-treatment and as a source of income. The increasing demand for these remedies could lead to the over-harvest of some species. Despite a recent surge in the number of studies analysing wild medicinal plants management, little is known about the effects of non-com...

Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna Jacq.) and whitebeam (Sorbus aria (L.) Crantz) are wild species traditionally used as ethnic foods in the Mediterranean area. Their red berries, and mainly the peels, may be used as ingredients due to their color (replacing other synthetic colorants) or functional properties. Some previous studies analyze all edible fru...

List of Spanish wild plant species with the ethnobotanical references in which they have been reported as medicinal and their cultural importance index (CI). Accompanied as well by data about origin (wild or cultivated), abundance, occupancy area, endemicity, conservation status, protection status. We also provide the complete list of references an...

Around 7% of the 350,000 vascular plant species are useful, mostly as medicine (25,791 species)1. Medicinal plants are used for self-treatment, and as source of income2. The growing demand has led to unmonitored commercial gathering, which could result in the over-harvest of some species3. Here, we explore the connection between the cultural import...

This book constitutes the second volume of the Spanish Inventory of Traditional Knowledge related to Agricultural Biodiversity (IECTBA), which will be completed in the coming years with two more volumes. A total of 75 inventory monographs are included, of which there are 36 main species monographs that include information on 45 species (47 taxa) an...

The harvest of wild plants with medicinal uses is increasing globally, but we know little of the effects of non-commercial harvesting in their conservation status. Here, we explore the connection between the cultural importance of the 1,376 wild medicinal vascular plants traditionally used in Spain for self-treatment (22% of the autochthonous flora...

In this new era of Mediterranean Botany, the editorial team opened the possibility of submitting manuscripts for evaluation to the ethnobotany/ethnopharmacology section of the journal. We present a compendium of the minimum standards that manuscripts based in field research should comply in order to positively pass to the review process, as a minim...

Spanish biocultural diversity is very rich and varied due to its location, linguistic diversity, and the influence of the different peoples that have passed through the Iberian peninsula throughout history. Nonetheless, industrialization and economic development in Spain resulted in the depopulation of rural areas and the abandonment of most tradit...

Humanity faces the challenge of conserving the attributes of biodiversity that may be essential to secure human wellbeing. Among all the organisms that are beneficial to humans, plants stand out as the most important providers of natural resources. Therefore, identifying plant uses is critical to preserve the beneficial potential of biodiversity an...

Ethnopharmacological relevance: The documentation and protection of traditional knowledge face new challenges in the era of open science. Focusing on medicinal and food uses, we discuss two innovative initiatives in Spain to document, protect and return to the society traditional knowledge. Materials and methods: The Spanish Inventory of Traditi...

The divergent nature of evolution suggests that securing the human benefits that are directly provided by biodiversity may require counting on disparate lineages of the Tree of Life. However, quantitative evidence supporting this claim is still tenuous. Here, we draw on a global review of plant-use records demonstrating that maximum levels of phylo...

El 26 de febrero de este 2021 la Sociedad de Etnobiología, promovida por los investigadores firmantes de esta calenda, fue inscrita en el Registro Nacional de Asociaciones. La motivación surge de la gran acogida que tuvieron, desde principios de la pasada década, varios proyectos que tenían por objetivo el estudio de los conocimientos tradicionales...

Introducción y objetivos: en un contexto de crisis de biodiversidad global, existe un consenso científico y político creciente acerca de la importancia de incorporar el Conocimiento Ecológico Tradicional para la conservación de la naturaleza. Sin embargo, dichos esfuerzos se han centrado en culturas indígenas, dando lugar a una menor atención sobre...

Many ethnobotanical studies have shown differences in the knowledge and practices held by men and women. Using ethnographic fieldwork, a survey, and secondary data from three different areas in Spain, this study shows a geographical pattern in women’s and men’s relations with wild edible plants. In the case studies from Southern Spain, Doñana, and...

Background and aims : In the current context of global biodiversity loss, consensus is growing about the importance of incorporating Traditional Ecological Knowledge in nature conservation. However, efforts with this concern have mainly focused on indigenous cultures. In this scenario we chose Sierra de Andía, a Spanish Red Natura Site with ancient...

Despite the increasing scientific and public interest in wild food plants, their traditional knowledge is undergoing a deep cultural erosion process at a global scale. The paper assesses past and present use of wild food plants in Sierra Norte de Madrid (Spain) in order to understand which are the main drivers of its evolution. We interviewed 132 i...

Household responses to COVID-19 in different corners of the world represent the primary health care that communities have relied on for preventing and mitigating symptoms. During a very complex and confusing time, in which public health services in multiple countries have been completely overwhelmed, and in some cases even collapsed, these first-li...

The divergent nature of evolution suggests that securing the human benefits that are directly provided by biodiversity may require counting on disparate lineages of the Tree of Life. However, quantitative evidence connecting evolutionary history to human well-being is still surprisingly tenuous. Here, we drew on a global review of plant-use records...

En este artículo se informa sobre la constitución de la Sociedad de Etnobiología, una asociación cientifico-técnica sin ánimo de lucro cuyo objetivo es la investigación, estudio, difusión y desarrollo de actividades relativas al patrimonio biocultural en España.

Citizen science (CS) is growing quickly, given its potential to enhance knowledge coproduction by diverse participants, generating large and global data sets. However, uneven participation in CS is still an important concern. This work aims to understand (1) participation dynamics in CS and (2) how they are shaped by participation barriers and driv...

Understanding valuation of and access to traditional agroecological knowledge (TAeK) in industrialized countries is key to designing initiatives that can reverse the erosion of TAeK. We explored these issues using a quasi-experimental design. We measured valuation and access to TAeK with a survey before and after an intervention based on a citizen...

With a terrestrial surface increasingly dominated by human activities, conservation scholars nowadays seek to reconcile extractive land uses, such as low-intensity agriculture, forestry or agroforestry, with biodiversity conservation. This approach has been widely adopted by the international forestry community, which advocates for implementing man...

Currently, traditional ethnoveterinary practices are rare in European Union countries and the herbal remedies used previously have been mainly replaced by the modern drugs promoted by national veterinary services. However, in some rural areas of the Mediterranean basin, these traditional practices persist. Here we present the vascular plant resourc...

Through traditional practices that typically impact the surrounding natural areas, rural communities worldwide have created and maintained landscapes forming a diverse mosaic of species-rich habitats. In Europe, where a high portion of species is dependent on the persistence of traditional rural landscapes, the progressive abandonment of agricultur...

The establishment and maintenance of protected areas is the backbone of global conservation strategies to halt biodiversity loss. However, despite the more than 200,000 legally designated protected sites worldwide, the rate of species extinction has not decreased, for which some debate the real effectiveness of protected areas to preserve biodivers...

El conocimiento agroecológico tradicional (CAeT) incluye los conocimientos, prácticas o cosmovisiones relativos a la agrobiodiversidad y los agroecosistemas. Estos conocimientos están adaptados localmente y han sido desarrollados por las comunidades rurales de todo el mundo a través de su interacción con el entorno. Estos sistemas de conocimiento h...

Traditional agroecological knowledge (TAeK) refers to the cumulative and evolving body of knowledge, practices, beliefs, institutions, and worldviews about the relationships between a society or cultural group and their agroecosystems. These knowledge systems contribute to maintaining environmental and culturally sensitive food systems and have bee...

Pardo de Santayana, Manuel; Morales, Ramón; Tardío, Javier; Aceituno-Mata, Laura y Molina, María (editores). 2018. INVENTARIO ESPAÑOL DE LOS CONOCIMIENTOS TRADICIONALES RELATIVOS A LA BIODIVERSIDAD. FASE II (2). Ministerio de Agricultura y Pesca, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente. Madrid. 425 pp

Pardo de Santayana, Manuel; Morales, Ramón; Tardío, Javier; Aceituno-Mata, Laura y Molina, María (editores). 2018 INVENTARIO ESPAÑOL DE LOS CONOCIMIENTOS TRADICIONALES RELATIVOS A LA BIODIVERSIDAD. FASE II (3). Ministerio de Agricultura y Pesca, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente. Madrid. 488 pp.

In pre-industrial Spain, the use of local natural resources was essential in guaranteeing peasants’ subsistence (Piqueras and Sanz, 2007), especially in high mountain areas, where forest resources were essential for everyday life (Parrotta and Trosper, 2012). Overtime, groups developed formal –e.g., local ordinances– and informal –e.g., cultural pr...

Esta comunicación proporciona una visión histórica de la importancia de las prácticas tradicionales en montes comunales españoles. Desde la Edad Media hasta principios del s. XIX, el papel clave de los recursos forestales en las economías de subsistencia de la mayoría de comunidades campesinas favoreció el desarrollo de técnicas dirigidas a preserv...

More than 17,000 of the plant species of the world have been used as medicines. The Mediterranean basin, and specifically Spain, has a great floristic and ethnobotanical richness, comprising its useful flora around 3,000 plant species. This paper studies medicinal plants traditionally used in Spain in order to analyze the sustainability of their ex...

Debates sobre quién, cómo y con qué implicaciones sociales, económicas y ecológicas alimentará el mundo. Las variedades tradicionales o variedades locales son bienes comunales, ya que han sido creadas y mantenidas por las comunidades campesinas. Sin embargo, la apropiación privada de las variedades tradicionales amenaza los derechos de uso colectiv...

Despite wild food plants' potential nutritional and economic value, their knowledge and consumption is quickly decreasing throughout the world. We examine how the consideration that a wild plant use is within the cultural tradition of a given area relates to its consumption by analysing 1) current perception and 2) past and present use of six wild...

El Convenio sobre la Diversidad Biológica (CDB, ONU 1992) puso de manifiesto la importancia del conocimiento ecológico tradicional para la conservación y el uso sostenible de la biodiversidad y urgió a que se realizaran estrategias nacionales para la recopilación y conservación de los conocimientos tradicionales relativos a la biodiversidad. En Esp...

Background: The traditional markets in southern Ecuador and within the Andean region are especially important for plant resource trading among local people, even since before Spanish colonization; therefore, ethnobotanical studies are currently necessary and important. These strategic spaces persist for the traditional medicine cultural value refl...

Desde tiempos lejanos la especie humana se ha servido de la naturaleza de la cual forma parte, de aquí nace una ciencia encargada de estudiar el conocimiento tradicional de las plantas, la etnobotánica. Un botánico norteamericano, fue el primero en utilizar este término a finales del siglo XIX (Harshberger, 1896) y le siguieron botánicos y antropól...

Ethnobotanical studies often bring to light interesting uses of plants to be contrasted experimentally. Chamaemelum fuscatum (Brot.) Vasc. is a species from the W Mediterranean, especially frequent in the SW of the Iberian Peninsula [1]. It has been used as a medicinal plant in the rural world, although it remains someway underestimated. The object...

In Spain, as in other Mediterranean countries, wild edible plants have played an important role in complementing and balancing a diet based on agricultural foods, especially during times of shortage. This chapter analyses the ethnobotanical data currently available on wild plants traditionally used for human consumption in Spain, particularly veget...

In the Mediterranean, traditional food systems have typically used a large number of plants harvested from the wild, including fruit-tree species, climbing plants with edible young shoots, wild tubers, and leafy greens. In this chapter we review the studies on natural production of wild edible plants, including those carried out by our research gro...

This chapter presents 38 monographs about 41 selected wild edible plants traditionally consumed in different countries of the Mediterranean basin: Allium ampeloprasum, Anchusa azurea, Apium nodiflorum, Arbutus unedo, Asparagus acutifolius, Beta marítima, Borago officinalis, Bryonia dioica, Capsella bursa-pastoris, Chenopodium album, Chondrilla junc...

This chapter presents 38 monographs about 41 selected wild edible plants traditionally consumed in different countries of the Mediterranean basin: Allium ampeloprasum, Anchusa azurea, Apium nodiflorum, Arbutus unedo, Asparagus acutifolius, Beta marítima, Borago officinalis, Bryonia dioica, Capsella bursa-pastoris, Chenopodium album, Chondrilla junc...

Ethnobotanical relevance: Medicinal and food plants in the Basque Country are an integral part of a fast changing culture. With a distinct tradition and language, this region of Europe provides an important example demonstrating the changing role of local and traditional knowledge in industrial countries. As other Mediterranean regions it preserve...

European medicinal plants have attracted scholars since ancient times. However, ethnobotanical studies in a modern sense, based on well-defined methods, aims and appropriate documentation, were not introduced in Europe until the mid-19th century. More than 180 medical ethnobotanical field studies were found in a survey of papers indexed in Scopus d...

Despite the dominance of conventional medicine, many people in industrialized countries such as Spain, still use traditional medicine and especially medicinal plants to treat minor illnesses. Although many studies claim that knowledge about such remedies has been lost in recent decades, little is known about which plants young people use and the so...

Spain is one of the largest countries of Europe with an area of 505,992 km2 and a population of more than 46,500,000 people. It has a very rich vascular flora composed of 7071 species given its climatic, geographic and ecologic diversity. Inaddition to this high plant biodiversity, a complex history has brought about a great cultural diversity. A t...

A study of two Balkan ethnic groups living in close proximity finds that traditional knowledge about local plant resources helps communities to cope with periods of famine, and can promote the conservation of biodiversity.

Traditional knowledge on the species Chilidaneus glutinosus registered in Spain is presented. Se describen los conocimientos tradicionales asociados a la especie Chilidaneus glutinosus registrados en España

Traditional knowledge on the species Chondrilla juncea, registered in Spain, is presented. Se describen los conocimientos tradicionales asociados a la especie Chondrilla juncea que se han registrado en España

Traditional knowledge on the species Arbutus unedo, registered in Spain, is presented Se describen los conocimientos tradicionales asociados a la especie Arbutus unedo que se han registrado en España

Traditional knowledge on the species Osmunda regalis, registered in Spain, is presented. Se describen los conocimientos tradicionales asociados a la especie Osmunda regalis que se han registrado en España

Traditional knowledge on the species Scolymus hispanicus, registered in Spain, is presented. Se describen los conocimientos tradicionales asociados a la especie Scolymus hispanicus que se han registrado en España