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Correspondence

www.ethnobotanyjournal.org/vol6/i1547-3465-06-487.pdf

Ethnobotany Research & Applications 6:487-502 (2008)

Fentahun Mengistu, Amhara Regional Agricultural Research In-

stitute, P.O.Box 527, Bahir Dar, [email protected] Hager, Department of Forest and Soil sciences, Insti-tute of Forest Ecology, Boku University of Natural Resourcesand Applied Life Sciences, Peter-Jordan Street 82, A- 1190 Vi-enna, [email protected]

In spite of their importance, wild edible plants, especial-ly fruit bearing species, suffer notable disregard from re-search and development plans in Ethiopia, particularly inthe Amhara region. Thus they remain inadequately docu-mented. Basic information pertaining to wild fruit speciesis available from the local people who are the custodiansof these resources and knowledge about them (Demel &Abeje 2004). At present, due to the catastrophic destruc-tion of their natural habitats, wild edible plant resourcesare degrading fast along with the associated indigenousknowledge. Yet, documentation and preservation of thisknowledge in the country remains scanty (Demel & Abeje2004, Getachew et al. 2005). As such, assessment andbetter understanding of the wild fruit resources and asso-

ciated knowledge is crucial. As a step in this direction, thestudy made use of local peoples knowledge to dene thecultural domain of wild fruits.

Cultural domains are important starting points for study-ing peoples perceptions of the natural world and are im-portant aspects of local/indigenous knowledge by whichcultural organizations are understood (Puri & Vogl 2005).Hence, dening cultural domains from an emic perspec-

Wild Edible Fruit Species

Cultural Domain, Informant

Species Competence and

Preference in Three Districts

of Amhara Region, EthiopiaFentahun Mengistu and Herbert Hager

Research

Abstract

The study was carried out in Adiarkay, Debark and De-jen districts in a context where wild fruit bearing speciessuffer notable disregard from research and developmentstrategies, and consequently the basic information re-mains verbally with the local people without being ade-quately documented. Free-listing, individual interviews,focus group discussions, direct observation and pair-wiseranking were used to glean and evaluate data. Altogether,46 species make up the wild fruits domain of the studyarea. Each site and district appeared to have its own cul-tural domain, and salient and favorite species. There isa high correspondence between highly preferred and sa-lient species. Aggregating free-list data to solicit a culturaldomain of the highest stratum (study area) was found tohighly underestimate the domains of lower strata (districtsand sites). There exists a wealth of knowledge about wildfruit species, especially on the part of the youth, shed-ding light on the perpetuation of indigenous knowledge.Future studies on wild fruits in the area needs to capital-ize on species identied to have high consent and should

make use of informants identied as having high species

competency.

Introduction

The value of wild edible plants to sustained people in avariety of parts of the world has been well documented

(Grivetti & Ogle 2000, Redzic 2007). In Ethiopia, it is es-timated that 200 species of wild/semi-wild species arewidely used (Edwards 1992, Getachew et al. 2005, Mesn1997). Edible fruit bearing species form one of the mostimportant local survival strategies. This is particularly im-portant because their consumption has been reported tobe more common and widespread in food insecure areas(Getahun 1974, Guinand & Dechassa 2000).

Published: December 31, 2008

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Ethnobotany Research & Applications488


tive enables us to elicit lists of cultural domain elementsthat are considered by the local people as being membersof a particular domain (Borgatti 1994, 1996). Elementsof a cultural domain can be understood through free-list-ing method (Martin 1995), which has been successfullyused by several researchers for eliciting cultural domains

or as a precursor for further studies (Albuquerque & Ol-iveira 2007, Castaneda 2004, Castaneda & Stepp 2007,Khanh et al. 1999, Lykke 1998, Mouro et al. 2006, Quin-lan 2005, Wong et al. 2002). In this paper, we sought todene the content and structure of the wild edible fruit

tree/shrub species cultural domain and explore the asso-ciated knowledge, perception and preferences of peopleat varying sampling scales of analysis. In addition, we ex-amine factors responsible for intra- and inter-site infor-mant variations with respect to species competence andpreference.

Methodology

Study sites

The study was undertaken in Adiarkay, Debark and Dejendistricts of Amhara region, Northwestern Ethiopia duringthe period August 2006 to January 2007. Part of the NorthGondar Administrative Zone, Adiarkay (13.25N, 38.02E)and Debark (13.08N, 37.54E) districts are located adja-

cent to each other at the northeastern and western fring-es of the slopes of Semen Mountains bordered by Tig-ray region in the north, east and northwest. The TekezeRiver denes the eastern border of Adiarkay district. The

Dejen district (10.13N, 38.81E) is located in East Goj-jam Administrative Zone, at the southwestern end of the

Amhara region through which the region shares a borderwith the Oromiya region in the south. The Blue Nile Riverdelimits the study site, Kurar. The study area is situatedat an elevation between 1200 and 3400m above sea lev-el. Climatically, Adiarkay and Dejen have a warm temper-ate climate that tends to be hot to warm moist towardsthe specic study sites while it is cool at Debark, espe -cially in the highlands. Adiarkay, Debark and Dejen dis-tricts respectively receive an average yearly precipitationbetween 900-1800mm, 400-1200mm and 900-1200mm.Steep slopes, rugged ridges and ravines characterize theterrains of most part of the study sites. Acrisols form themajor soil types in Debark, Cambisols and Leptosols inAdiarkay while Dejen (Kurar site) is dominated by large

deposit of Rendzians mixed with eutric cambisols. Geo-logically, both Adiarkay and Debark are a formation of ter-tiary plateau volcanoes while Dejen (Kurar site) is a Me-sozoic sedimentary rock (BoPED 1999).

The inhabitants are dependent upon their natural environ-ment and the majority make a living out of subsistencemixed farming (crop and livestock production). Compound-

Ethiopia

Amhara

Adiarkay

Debark

Dejen

Figure 1. Map of the study area in Amhara region of Ethiopia.

0 50 100 150 Kilometers

N

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Fetahun & Hager - Wild Edible Fruit Species of Amhara Region, Ethiopia


489

ed by a fragile environmental setting, the study areas g-ure among the chronic food insecure areas periodicallyfacing food shortages. People are, therefore, poor and alarge proportion of the populace in Adiarkay and Debarkdistricts manage to survive on food aid. Christianity is thedominant religion, with Orthodox sects forming the major-

ity especially among rural inhabitants. Islamic people arefew in the rural settings. The majority of the people areAmhara nationals whose mother tongue is Amharic. Thisis the regional as well as the national ofcial language. A

few people are Tigre or members of other ethnic groups. Afew are bilingual speaking Amharic and Tigrinya.

Data collection and Analysis

Five Peasant Associations (hereafter called sites) werechosen in the three districts: Adiaregay and Bermariamin Adiarkay, Debir and Dibbahir in Debark and Kurar inDejen. A free-list technique was employed to elicit infor-mation about the cultural domain of wild edible fruit plant

species from informants. This is an effective method thatcan even be used with children or illiterate people (Sinha2003). Semi-structured interviews were administered with104 randomly chosen informants stratied by age and sex

(12-27 informants from each site). Informants were askedindependently the same question to freely name orally allthe wild edible fruit species they know as it comes intotheir memory. Their answers were noted verbatim in theorder given (Puri & Vogl 2005). Data were also collectedon informants attributes: age, gender, education statusand number of children. This was done to be able to re-late their social status with their species competence. Re-ections on species preferences of people were assessed

both through individual interviews of informants and in

groups, of which the latter exercised pair-wise ranking(Maundu 1995). In addition, in accompanied excursionswith key informants the researcher paid eld visits to ob -serve the plants cited to gather additional information.

Several of the wild fruit species were identied in the eld

with the help of informants and agricultural developmentexperts, and their botanical names established by refer-ring to available literatures and researchers` own experi-ences. For species which could not be conrmed on the

spot voucher specimens were transported to the Nation-al Herbarium of Addis Ababa University where they wereidentied and specimens deposited at.

The free-list data was analyzed at three levels; study area,district and site. It was summarized for species frequency,average rank, Smiths salience index (Smith 1993) as wellas free-list length of informants. To determine the culturaldomain of wild fruits, we adopted the rule suggested byBorgatti (1996) that only species cited by at least two in-formants were considered for inclusion. This was done onthe grounds that agreement between two individuals wasthe absolute minimum requirement for viewing an item asmore than idiosyncratic. Smiths salience index was used

to judge species saliency by weighing the average of theinverse rank of a species across multiple free-lists whereeach list was weighted by the number of species in thelist. ANTHROPAC (Borgatti 1992) was used to generateSmiths salience indexes.

The co-occurrence of species and distance in rank be-tween species in the free-lists were used as a simpleproxy for similarity of fruits in the domain (Castaneda &Stepp 2007, Sinha 2003). For this the free-list data wasdichotomized and only positive matches considered. Theproximity data was then input to construct fruit cluster dia-grams for which average linkage distance-based hierar-chical agglomerative clustering method was employed. Inaddition, a non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS)map was used to visualize the fruit species in a two-di-mensional space. This algorithm by considering the rankorder of the input proximitiy yields a negative relationshipwhere larger input values correspond to smaller map dis-tances (DeJordy et al. 2007). The degree of correspon-

dence between the distances among points implied bythe non-metric multidimensional scaling map and the in-put matrix was judged through a stress function, where astress level 0.15 and less was taken as acceptable (Bor-gatti 1996).

Consensus analysis was done to capture variations incompetence and culture of informants, identify speciesthat would be listed by typical informants and generate aconsensus key or model of right answers at study area,district and site levels. A reliability measure (pseudo-re-liability) closer to the value one and factor loadings inEigenvalue table, where the ratio of the rst factor to a

second is 3:1 or greater, were taken as a measure of high

consensus and single culture origin of informants. The in-uence of socio-demographic variables on fruit species

knowledge of informants was explored through a generallinear modeling (GLM) regression technique where nega-tive binomial-GLM with a log link was used. Frequenciesand a chi-square test were respectively used to summa-rize the informants free-list length and its correlation withage. Species preference was estimated from pair-wiserankings of group discussants and summaries of individu-al preference responses. All data analyses with respect tocultural domain and consensus analysis were performedin a series of steps using the ANTHROPAC 4.0 software(Borgatti 1992). Statistical Package for the Social Scienc-es (SPSS) 2006 for Windows, Version 15, was addition-

ally employed to summarize the free-list data.

Results and Discussion

The wild fruits domain

In the free-listing exercise, informants across the studyareas volunteered altogether the names of more than 50species. On average, each informant listed 9.6 species

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that ranged from as low as three to a maximum of 23.Three-quarters of the informants were able to mention12 or fewer species. This is shown by the slightly rightskewed histogram in Figure 3, where the frequency ofmention progressively declines as the length of free-listsincreases. After excluding species of single informant fre-

quency, 46 species were retained to constitute the wildfruits domain of the entire study area (Figure 2). The rarespecies are left out because only species that are in activeuse are expected to be cited with a high frequency. Hence,the low-frequency species are considered to be either inpassive use or used only in some idiolects (Sutrop 2001).

In addition, analysis of the free-list data by disaggregatinginto district and site levels showed a similar pattern wherea few species occur at higher frequencies. Each localityappeared to have its own respective domain with somelevel of species sharing with others (Table 1). At districtlevel, wild fruits cultural domain of Debark and Adiarkaycomposed of 23 and 26 species, respectively. Kurar and

Debir, in this order, recorded the longest (28 species) andshortest (11 species) citation of wild fruit species in theircultural domains at site level analysis.

Intra-and inter-site species familiarity

variations of informants

In a free-list exercise, the differences in list length andcontent are measures of intra-cultural variation where in-dividuals who know much about a subject list more termsthan people who know less (Quinlan 2005). In view ofthis, the present study raties that knowledge of species

among informants is heterogeneous where the majority ofinformants had less competence about wild fruit species

that might be related to various factors.

Knowledge is generated and transmitted through interac-tions within specic social and agro-ecological contexts.

Hence, ethnobiological knowledge and practice within anyculture has been reported to vary by factors such as geo-graphical origin, ethnicity, religion, occupation, education-al background, social status and relations, income class,age and gender (Gisella 2006, Pfeiffer & Butz 2005, Seta-laphruk & Price 2007). Among the informant attributes hy-pothesized to inuence familiarity or knowledge of edible

species using free-list length as a proxy, in the presentstudy only the age of informants had a highly signicant

negative inuence. Youngsters, especially children in the

teens, appeared more knowledgeable than elders (Table2). Those informants at and under the median age of 40were more knowledgeable than those above. As demon-strated by the contingency table in Table 3 while 43.6%of those below the median age category cited 10 or morespecies (about mean value), the corresponding gure for

those of above median age was only 8.1% (2 = 13.5;P

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491

Figure2.

Aplotoffree-listedediblefruitspeciesfrequencybya

veragerank(N=46species)inthreedistrictsofAmhararegion,

Ethiopia.

38

43

37

46

29

33

45

39

26

41

30

21

31

44

23

3225

20

27

19

363

4

22

1715

3

5

42

24

18

14

13

1

1

28

16

56

897

10

12

4

3

21

1.0

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.0

36912

15

18

F

requency

1-Carissaspinarum

2-Cordiaafrica

na

3-Ficussycomorus

4-Ziziphusspin

a-christi

5-Flueggeavirosa

6-Mimusopsku

mmel

7-Ximeniaame

ricana

8-Syzygiumgu

ineense

9-Diospyrosmespeliformis

10-Rosaabyss

inica

11-Rhusvulgaris

12-Rubussteudneri

13-Ficusvasta

14-Tamarindus

indica

15-Vangueriam

adagascariensis

16-Dovyalisab

yssinica

17-Ficusvallis-c

houdae

18-Strychnosinnocua

19-Phonexreclinata

20-Ficussur

21-Ziziphusaby

ssinica

22-Ficusthonningii

23-Opuntiaficus

-indica

24-Ziziphusmucronata

25-Euclearacem

osa

26-Grewiaferruginea

27-Lepisanthes

senegalensis

28-Rhusglutinosa

29-Gardeniaternifolia

30-Grewiaflavenscens

31-Grewiabicolor

32-Acaciaetbac

ia

33-Lantanacama

ra

34-Grewiaspecie

s

35-Carissaedulis

36-Ekebergiacap

ensis

37-Ziziphusspec

ies

38-Enseteventric

osum

39-Cordiaovalis

40-Myrsineafrica

na

41-Mateseber

42-Coffeaarabica

43-Piliostigmathonningi

44-Citrusaurantium

45-Agamshiro

46-Rubusedulis

Legend:

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Species Adiaregay Bermariam Debir Dibbahir Kurar

Acacia etbaica - - - - 0.19

Agamshiro - 0.02 - - -

Carissa edulis - - - - 0.17

Carissa spinarum 0.72 0.68 0.47 0.66 -

Citrus aurantium - - - 0.01 -

Coffea arabica - - 0.01 - -

Cordia africana 0.46 0.63 0.28 0.73 0.33

Cordia ovalis - - - - 0.07

Diospyros mespeliformis 0.41 0.61 - 0.17 -

Dovyalis abyssinica - 0.03 0.4 0.1 -

Ekebergia capensis - - - - 0.12

Ensete ventricosum - - - - 0.01

Euclea racemosa - - - - 0.21

Ficus sur 0.04 0.05 - 0.01 0.38Ficus sycomorus 0.41 0.54 0.29 0.44 0.4

Ficus thonningi 0.03 0.19 - - -

Ficus vallis-choudae 0.15 0.1 - 0.06 0.35

Ficus vasta 0.08 0.26 - 0.05 0.3

Flueggea virosa 0.37 0.51 - 0.24 0.07

Gardenia ternifolia - 0.02 - - 0.05

Grewia bicolor - - - - 0.18

Grewia ferruginea - 0.01 - - 0.15

Grewia avescens - - - - 0.16

Grewia sp - - - - 0.23

Lantana camara - - - - 0.07

Lepisanthes senegalensis 0.02 0.09 - - -

Mateseber - 0.03 - - -

Mimusops kummel 0.28 0.28 - 0.35 0.51

Myrsine africana - - 0.05 - -

Opuntia fcus-indica - - 0.07 0.02 0.12

Phoenix reclinata - 0.08 - 0.18 -

Pliostigma thonningi - 0.02 - - -

Rhus glutinosa - - - - 0.37

Rhus vulgaris 0.19 0.34 - 0.23 -

Rosa abyssinica - - 0.98 0.3 0.49Rubus edulis - - - - 0.02

Rubus steudneri - - 0.68 0.3 -

Strychnos innocua 0.08 0.23 - - -

Syzygium guineense 0.16 0.19 0.12 0.79 -

Tamarindus indica 0.09 0.09 - - 0.83

Table 1. Smiths S index scores for different species of the ve study sites.

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493

Figure 3. Informants knowledge of wild fruit speciesacross sites (N=104).

15

10

5

00 5 10 15 20 25

Mean = 9.64

Std Dev. =

4.389

N = 104

Free-list Len th

Frequency

Free-list length

Attribute Estimate Std.

Error

Pr>|z|

Intercept 2.589 0.245

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Carissa spinarum L. with the highest frequency (82%) andhighest average rank (3.6) followed by species that re-corded moderate frequency (60-80%) and average rank(4th-5th rank) like Cordia africana Lam., Ficus sycomorusL. and Ziziphus spina-christi(L).Desf. Such a correlationbetween high rank and high frequency of these species

signies that they are the most signicant to people. Esti-mates of average saliency of species were further judgedby Smiths salience index scores (Table 1). Evidently, sa-lience indices for the major part correspond to speciesfrequency and average rank scores. Simply put, speciesof high frequency and average rank recorded a higherSmiths salience index while less-frequent and low-rankspecies recorded low salience index.

Examining such average psychological saliency of spe-cies helps to understand how the domain is perceivedacross a group of people (Sinha 2003). In total, the mostsalient species with informant frequency of 82%, 79%,74%, 63% and 50% in that order appear to be represent-

ed by C. spinarum, C. africana, F. sycomorus, Z. christiand Flueggea virosa (Willd.) Vigot. Hence, these speciescan be regarded as the most signicant species to infor-mants that translate into prototypical to wild fruits domain.In contrast, about 52% of the species had 10% or lessinformant frequency suggesting that they are less signi-cant to informants.

Smiths salience index score for species of individual sitesdomain is given in Table 1. A typical domain is one that ischaracterized by a core set of items mentioned by manyrespondents and a large number of items cited by a fewor just by one person (Borgatti 1996, Martin 1995). Inthe present case, slight variations are noticeable among

sites, on those species of high saliency with respect totheir number, type and degree of saliency. Apparently, thehighest saliency index (0.98) for the most salience specieswas recorded at Debir forRosa abyssinica R. Br. while thelowest (0.70) was at Bermariam forZ. christi. This mightbe related to the weight given by informants to the speciesregarded most salient in respective sites relative to runnerup salient species. Consequently, in sites where there ap-pear several salient species of comparable signicance

the relative weight given to the most salient species wouldbe lower. This is because people will have several choicesto make for the species that is put in the front in their free-lists that eventually results in less informant agreementand thus overall lower salience score.

On the other hand, the degree of species saliency wasnoted to be slightly changing by the scale (stratum) of cul-tural domain analysis at study area, district or site levels.For instance, while R. abyssinica was the most salientspecies in Debark at the district level analysis, its degreeof saliency changed merely to medium level when thedata is aggregated to the highest strata (study area lev-el). Similarly, the saliency ofSyzygium guineense (Willd.)DC that was recorded to be very high at site level in Dib-

bahir appears to be much underestimated at the districtlevel analysis. The results brought to light that, becauseof the signicant differences in the type and importance

of species among the different sites, assessment of cul-tural domain at a higher scale (aggregated data at studyarea and district level) than a lower scale (site level) is

very likely to masquerade and undermine the knowledge,interests and preferences of the local community at re-spective sites. However, scale of analysis did not have asignicant inuence on degree of saliency of some spe-cies like C. spinarum. This might be explained by the wideecological distribution as well as the degree of importanceof the species that would result in greater familiarity by in-formants across locations.

Similarities and differences among cultural domains

of sites

Each locality is bestowed with a wide range of wild fruitspecies some of which are pretty important in one local-

ity but hardly known or virtually inedible in another. Thedendrogram in Figure 4 portrays similarities among sitesin terms of wild fruits cultural domain. Taking 10.5% dis-similarity coefcient as a cut-off point, three sites, name -ly Adiaregay, Bermariam and Dibbahir showed great re-semblance with respect to fruit species that make up theirdomains. These same sites also share similar species ofhigh salience scores (C. spinarum and Z. christi). Climaticsimilarity that shapes the types of species occurring andin turn results in a shared culture among people of theseadjacent sites could be a large part of the explanation. Onthe other hand, characterized respectively by very cooland arid climates the wild fruit species cultural domains ofDebir and Kurar sites appear to be different from all other

sites and from each other. It might as well be that Ku-rar being a more isolated site, a lack of information shar-ing and thus differences in culture may account for its pe-culiarity. The higher cultural domain dissimilarity amongsites nds further evidence from the fact that the ve sites

have only two species, F. sycomorous and C. africana,in common. Pagella et al. (2002) suggested that whileknowledge differs to some extent between communities,common frameworks and terminology may occur acrosslarge distances and people with similar agro-ecologicalcircumstances in different geographical and cultural con-texts may have similar perceptions. In the context of thepresent study, therefore, familiarity of people with somespecies across sites however few reects, apart from site-

specic knowledge, the existence of a shared knowledgeamong communities of different sites.

Species co-occurrence in free-lists

In cultural domain analysis, there appears a relation be-tween species in free-lists in terms of how people think ofthem that gives the domain a structure. Such is portrayedin Figure 5 by a non-metric two-dimensional scaling mapof wild fruits domain of Debark district that yielded a clear

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495

Figure 5. A non-metric two-dimensional scaling (NMDS) map of wild fruits species domain at Debark, Ethiopia (Stressin two dimensions is 0.99).

No. Species

1 Rubus steduneri

2 Rosa abyssinica

3 Myrsine africana

4 Carissa spinarum

5 Ziziphus spina-christi

6 Ficus sycomorus

7 Cordia africana

8 Dovyalis abyssinica9 Opuntia fcus-indica

10 Ficus vasta

11 Syzygium guineense

12 Coffea arabica

13 Ximenia americana

14 Flueggea virosa

15 Mimusops kummel

16 Diospyros mespeliformis

17 Ziziphus abyssinica

18 Phoenix reclinata

19 Vangueria madagascariensis

20 Rhus vulgaris

21 Citrus aurantifolia

22 Ficus vallis-choudae

23 Ficus sur

3.00

2.00

1.00

0.00

-1.00

-2.00

-3.00

-3.00 -2.00 -1.00 0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00

12

3

8 25

614 7

1115

2014

1819

1316

9 10

22

1723

21

DM

2

DM 1

+ +

Site

Adiaregay

Bermariam

Dibbahir

Debir

Kurar

1

2

4

3

5

0 5 10 15 20 25

Figure 4. A dendrogram showing classication of informants of different sites in three districts of Amhara region, Ethi-opia based on similarities in free-lists of wild edible fruit species (Bray-Curtis distanced average linkage hierarchicalagglomerative algorithm). The cut off point is set at 10.5%.

insight into the relation among the species as well as theirlevel of importance. Distance within the map represents

the degree of similarity amongst species in terms of be-ing mentioned more often and together by informants

while distance from the center of the map gives a hintabout the importance of each species within the domain

(Castaneda 2004). Species in the map appeared moreor less in what is commonly termed as fried egg fashion,

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where the most salient species of the domain are clus-tered in the inner core, the less frequent and less impor-tant species in the second circle and species mentionedrarely as outliers in the outermost circle. Consequently,the innermost circle of the map composed of 16 speciesthat includes, among others, R. abyssinica, C. spinarum,Rubus steudneri Schweinf. and C. africana, which are

most frequently quoted edibles. Particularly, R. abyssinicaand R. steudneri (clustered in the rst iteration at 82%similarities in the tree diagram not shown) and C. africanaand F. sycomorus (second iteration at 79 % similarities)appear to be species that are most frequently and consis-tently mentioned together. The middle circle is occupiedby ve species; namely, Ficus vasta Forssk, Ficus vallis-choudae Delile, M. africana, Opuntia fcus-indica (L.) Mill.and Ziziphus abyssinica Hochst. ex A. Rich. that are formost part regarded as delicacies only for children. Theoutermost circle consists of two outlier species (Coffea ar-abica L. and Citrus aurantium L.) that were cited by twoinformants each. The later species are popular domesti-cates, that occur only rarely in a wild state and they hap-

pen to be known only to a few people in the wilderness so

that their frequency is very low. Therefore, these speciesare rather less important as only a few individuals hold theknowledge about them (Castaneda 2004). Moreover, aninteresting pattern emerged in the two-dimensional scal-ing map such that respondents of the same site showed atendency to name similar species that occur very closelytogether. Within such sub-groups the more salient species

form a cluster of their own. Accordingly, most species inthe second quadrant are those cited by informants fromDebir site while the third and fourth quadrants are occu-pied by species cited by Dibbahir informants. This concurswith Tigist et al. (2006), and apparently shows a sharedculture among informants within than between sites.

Grouping tendency of fruit species was further illustrat-ed by a cluster analysis of free-lists of Adiarkay District,as an example (Figure 6). In this case, at 10.5% cut-offpoint two clusters were apparent. The larger cluster con-sists of seven species: C. spinarum, Z. spina-christi, C.africana, F. sycomorus, Diospyros mespiliformis Hochst.ex. A. DC, F. virosa and Rhus vulgaris Meikle. This list

perfectly corresponds to the highly salient species of the

Figure 6. A dendrogram depicting clustering of species in free-lists of Adiarkay district wild fruits domain (Bray-Curtisdistanced average linkage hierarchical agglomerative algorithm).The cut off point is set at 10.5%.

Piliostigma thonningi

Grewia ferruginea

Agamshiro

Dovyalis abyssinica

Gardenia ternifolia

Mateseber

Carissa spinarum

Ziziphus spina-christi

Diospyros mespeliformisCordia africana

Ficus sycomorus

Flueggea virosa

Rhus vulgaris

Mimosops kummel

Ximenia americana

Ficus vallis-choudae

Syzygium guineense

Zizyphus abyssinica

Tamarindus indica

Ficus vasta

Ficus thonningii

Vangueria madagascariensis

Strycnos innocuaLepisanthes senegalensis

Phoenix reclinata

Ficus sur

0 5 10 15 20 25

25

26

20

22

23

24

2

7

38

9

1

14

11

5

4

10

17

18

16

19

12

1315

21

6

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497

districts wild fruits domain. Out of these, by being joinedin the second iteration (14% dissimilarity coefcient), C.

spinarum and Z. spina-christitend to be frequently men-tioned together. The second cluster was formed out of twoinfrequently mentioned species, P. thonningiiand G. fer-ruguinea that were again consistently mentioned together.

Likewise, cluster analysis of species at study area andsite levels (not shown) followed a similar trend.

Informant consensus

Consensus analysis provides a framework and method ofanalyzing patterns of agreement among respondents anda way to uncover the culturally correct answers to a set ofquestions in the face of certain kinds of intra-cultural vari-ability. As such, it enables the assessment of the extent ofknowledge possessed by each informant about the cultur-al domain (Borgatti 1994, 1996, 1997, Quinlan 2005). Inthe present study, the estimated knowledge of informants(typicality), which is the percentage of agreement of their

list to the model list, varied among informants within andbetween localities (Table 4). Informants at Debir had ahigher mean estimated knowledge of 0.610.26 whereasKurar recorded very low, 0.10 0.43 indicating that infor-mants are very diverse in the latter and poorly representthe community they were drawn from.

As a rule, the higher the frequency score the more normalthe informant is considered. Consequently, informantswho score a value close to one will have a higher cultur-al competence and represent the community well, and inthe event of complete consensus every one would scoreone. On the other hand, low score value means that in-formants do not follow the norm, which is often explained

by the loss of knowledge or expert knowledge or a differ-ent culture, or misunderstanding the free-list task (Puri &Vogl 2005). For example, a teenage cattle herder boy whoreported 23 species in his free-list at Adiarkay recordedthe lowest knowledge score (0.03) and appeared an out-lier. However, this can be accounted for as his exception-ally high competence. Certainly, his day after day intimateassociation with the forest and heath gives him a chanceof exploring all possible niches and familiarizing himselfwith several edible species.

As demonstrated in Table 4, high pseudo-reliability val-ues in all sites but Kurar implies that informants have ahigher consensus in their respective consensus keys.This together with the factor loadings in eigenvalues tablesuggests that informants are drawn from a single culturein their own respective localities. Hence, the variations inrespondents answers are unsystematic that arose simplyfrom variance in cultural centrality (Borgatti 1994, 1997).Conversely, Kurar recorded a relatively lower pseudo-re-liability (0.61) and the rst factor of the eigenvalues ex-plained only 40.3% of the variation. This signies the ex-istence of great variability among informants knowledgeand thus violation of a one-culture assumption. Indeed, a

closer look at the Kurar site data has shown that the ageof informants is responsible for these variations, whereyoung and adult informants provided different sets andlengths of species in their free-lists. Importantly, however,this variability might also arise from the small sample size(Sinha 2003). As a result, informants at Kurar appear to

have a lower consensus.

Overall, in all sites there appeared a great overlap betweenspecies included in the consensus model and those withhigh salience index scores. More often than not, these arethe species that many people share or are familiar withmost. Moreover, it was noted that the higher the scale ofanalysis the lower the number of species are included inthe consensus model. As a result, only four species, in or-der of importance, C. spinarum, Z. christi, C. africana andF. sycomorus attained a study area level informant con-sensus (Table 4). Such a low level of informant agreementis suggestive of the high variability among informants ofthe different sites. Hence, as cautioned by Borgatti (1994),

attempts to aggregate data from across all informants ofdifferent sites, which are of distinct sub-culture, to obtaina majority view will be a futile exercise.

Species preference

The present study conrmed that each locality has its

own set of favorite species. Generally, Z. spina-christiwith28.6% informant frequency followed closely by C. spinar-um and D. mespilliformis at par (23.8%) appear to be spe-cies of high preference in Adiarkay while at Debark R. ab-yssinica (37.5%) and S. guineense (29.2%) are most val-ued species (Figure 7). At Kurar site of Dejen district, Tam-arindus indica L. (80%) andXimenia americana L. (20%)

were species of utmost preference. Species preferencewas reported to vary among different areas and communi-ties depending on species distribution, indigenous knowl-edge and economic pursuits of the community (Pauline &Linus 2004). In the context of this study, variations in spe-cies preferences among sites, especially between Debir(less species rich site) and the other four sites are likely toarise from differences in species distribution intensity be-cause of the wide array of ecological niches at short dis-tances. This would in turn bring about cultural differencesamong informants of different sites.

Nevertheless, even close-by sites were not immune tovariations in species preference of people as can be seenbetween Adiaregay and Bermariam sites. While thesesites are adjacent to each other and share similar climateas well as a more or less similar ora, perhaps because of

inuence from language and culture of the neighborhood

Tigryan people on Adiaregay informants, informants spe-cies choice as well as vernaculars tend to be slightly dif-ferent from Bermariam. The overriding inuence of culture

on species choice can also clearly be demonstrated by T.indica andX. americana species. While these species oc-cur both at Kurar and at Adiarkay localities, they were rat-

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ed differently at the two sites; very high at the former andwere low at the latter. Generally, the ndings suggest that

species preference tends to be more dependent on socio-cultural factors rather than biological such as climate oravailability of the species in the locality.

Moreover, like the case of cultural domain analysis spe-cies preferences of people were noted to slightly under-valued, if not on the type, in the rank order of priorities,when data was analyzed at higher (total study area anddistrict) than lower scale (site). For instance, R. abyssi-nica and S. guineense, in this order, appeared the mostsought-after species in the aggregated data of Debarkdistrict. However, a site level analysis revealed that thesespecies rank the best in their respective sites: R. abyssi-nica at Debir and S. guineense at Dibbahir. This indicates

that district level prioritization has somehow underratedspecies preferences of Dibbahir informants.

In addition, species preferences tend to slightly varyingby age. Adults were found to perceive the value of wildfruit bearing plant species stereotypically for their non-fruit

utilities than fruits while the reverse was true on the part ofchildren. Therefore, the confounding variable of non-fruitutility perspective implicitly held by the adult age group isbound to inuence fruit species ranking exercises. Fur-thermore, precedence of non-fruit services to fruits by el-derly could be a cause for concern as it can have graveimplications in the sense that since in most cases adultsare the decision makers of the family wild fruit species willmost likely be exploited for non-fruit utilities than fruits.

Figure 7. Wild fruit species preferences at Adiarkay (N=42), Debark (N=21) and Kurar (N=20) in Amhara region, Ethio-pia based on summaries from individual interview responses.

80

60

40

20

0

Percent

Species

Debark Adiarkay Kurar

Percent

Species

Rosaabyssinica

Zizyphusspina-christi

Cordiaafricana

Syzygiumguineense

Diospyrosmespillifomis

Ximeniaamericana

Vangueriamadagascariensis

Zizyphusspina-christi

Cordiaafricana

Carissaspp.

Dospyrosmespeliformis

Ximeniaamericana

Mimusopskummel

Tamarindusindica

Tamarindusindica

Ximeniaamericana

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499

District/

Site

Numberof

informants

Number

ofspecies

mentioned

Number

of

species

included

inthe

domain

Mean

free-list

lengthper

informant

(SD)

Minimum-

maximum

free-list

Mean

estimate

of

informants

knowledge

(SD)

Number

ofspecies

included

inthe

consensu

s

model

Pseudo-

reliability

Species

ftting

the

con

sensus

key

Adiarkay

(district)

47

31

26

10.0

94.17

4to22

0.6

30.2

7

1.0

F.virosa,

C.spinarum,D

.

mespiliformis,

Z.spina-c

hristi,

C.a

fricana,

F.sycomorus,

R.vulgaris

Adiaregay

(site)

20

21

19

8.2

02.4

8

4to12

0.5

70.1

5

8

0.9

F.virosa,

C.spinarum,D

.mespiliformis,

Z.spina-christi,

C.africa

na,

F.

sycomorus,

R.vulgaris,

M.

kummel

Bermariam

(site)

27

29

26

11.4

84.6

4

5to22

0.5

90.2

4

9

0.9

C.spinarum,

X.america

na,

F.sycomorus,

C.african

a,

Z.spina-christi,

D.mesp

eliformis,

M.

kummel,R.vulgaris,

F.virosa

Debark

(district)

45

31

23

8.0

23.3

3

3to20

0.6

30.2

4

7

1.0

R.steudneri,

R.abyssin

ica,

C.spinarum,

F.sycomorus,

D.

abyssinlca,

S.guineense,

C.africana

Debir(site)

22

13

11

6.0

51.8

1

3to8

0.6

10.2

6

6

0.9

R.s

teudneri,

R.a

byssinic

a,

C.

spinarum,

F.sycomorus

,

C.africana,

D.abyssinic

a

Dibbahir

(site)

23

28

21

9.8

73.4

2

5to20

0.5

60.1

7

11

0.9

X.americana,

S.guinee

nse,

C.africana,

R.steudner

i,F.

sycomorus,

R.abyssinic

a,

C.

spinarum,

F.virosa,

P.reclinata,

R.vulgaris,

M.

kummel

Kurar(site)

12

28

28

13.4

25.53

5to23

0.1

00.4

3

8

0.8

T.

indica,

X.americana,

Z.

mucronata,

R.abyssinic

a,

F.sycomorus,

C.edulis,

R.

glutinosa,

M.kummel

Total

104

52

46

9.6

44.3

9

3to23

0.7

30.1

9

4

1.0

C.spinarum,

Z.spina-christi,

C.africana,

F.sycomoru

s

Table4.

Summaryoffree-listlength,wildfruitsdomain,estimatedinformantsknowledge

andfruitspeciesincludedintheconsensuskey.

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Overall, there is a clear preference for Z. spina-chris-ti, R. abyssinica, Carissa species, D. mespiliformis, S.guineense, T. indica, Mimusops kummelBruce ex A. DC.,Dovyalis abyssinica Warb. andX. americana in the studyarea. Interestingly, except D. abyssinica these species arein commerce in their respective localities. This criterionmight have been considered during informants prefer-

ence ratings. More appealing was that the most preferredspecies largely match the highly salient species identi-ed in the cultural domains of respective localities. This

might suggest that free-listing technique can effectivelybe used to reinforce species prioritizing methods like pair-wise ranking to generate species preference lists of peo-ple. Generally, peoples high inclination to the above spe-cies coupled with the high consensus and saliency scorerecords suggest that they merit consideration for widerpromotion and use. For example, M. kummelts with thecountrys priority list (Demel & Abeje 2004), while Ziziphusand Tamarind are within Biodiversity Internationals prior-ity species in Eastern and Southern Africa (IPGRI 2002).Hence, there is a good prospect and opportunity for pro-

moting these species making use of knowledge and expe-rience from collaborative research.

Conclusion

The study provided an interesting insight into the culturaldomain of wild fruit species at varying scales of analysis:total study area, district and site, including species of highprominence and preference to the people. Notwithstand-ing the marginal environment, the wild fruits domain of thestudy area appeared fairly rich. However, despite the enor-mous language, ethnicity and religion sharing among peo-ple of the different sites, each locality appeared to have itsown peculiar domain and salient species with some level

of species sharing with others. Such a scenario is instruc-tive in that an attempt to solicit a cultural domain of wildfruits and people species preferences by aggregating thedata to a study area level underestimates the cultural do-mains of districts and sites and would fall short of articulat-ing perceptions and preferences of informants.

Among personal attributes age appears to be the singlemost important factor responsible for knowledge variationsof wild fruit species where youngsters are more knowl-edgeable than elders. This wealth of genius of wild fruitson the part of the younger generation is suggestive of thesustainability of indigenous knowledge. In addition, apartfrom cultural differences, rich oral backdrop of a locality,

proximity to natural vegetation and closer association withthe landscape as well as geographical isolation are someof the factors that explain variations in informants wild fruitknowledge. The ndings further revealed that species that

appear highly salient for the most part overlap with highlypreferred species. This points out that during free-listingexercises informants give precedence to favorite species,which suggests the possibility of employing the free-listtechnique to reinforce species prioritizing activities.

In total, as the cultural domain analysis and species pref-erence results suggest, Z. spina-christi, C. spinarum andD. mespilliformis at Adiarkay, R. abyssinica, C. spinarumand S. guineense at Debark and T. indica andX. ameri-cana at Kurar appear as the most important species ofhigh fervor by the community, which will possibly translateinto their increased usage and conservation. In general,

future contemplations on the wild fruits of the study areamight need to keep fruit species of high consensus to theforefront and and make use of those informants identied

as having high species competence.

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to Austrian Exchange Service (s-terreichischer Austauschdienst) for nancing this research

through offering a PhD scholarship opportunity for the rst

author. Our great thanks also go to the Amhara RegionalAgricultural Research Institute for giving him a PhD studyopportunity, and to the Institute of Forest Ecology of BokuUniversity for hosting him during his study. We give spe-cial thanks to the farmers for sharing us their wealth ofknowledge and spending their precious time with us. Weare also indebted to the two anonymous reviewers whoprovided us with invaluable comments.

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