Plant Diversity, Ethnobotany and Barcoding of Medicinal and Cosmetic Plants in Kalu and Bati Districts of Amhara Region, Ethiopia
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2020-06-06
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The study was conducted in Kalu and Bati Districts, South Wollo Zone of Amhara Region, Ethiopia. It was aimed at documenting plant diversity in selected forest patches, ethnobotany and barcoding of medicinal and cosmetic plants. Vegetation data were collected from 50 and 30 sampling plots (20 m × 20 m) for Anabe and Gerfa-ourene forest patches respectively using transect method. For shrubs and herbs 5 m x 5 m and 1 m x 1 m subplots were laid within each quadrat respectively. Ethnobotanical data were collected by administering semi-structured interviews with randomly sampled 300 informants, through direct field observation, 20 focus group discussion and in eight local markets. For DNA barcoding sequences, samples were collected both in voucher form and by silica gel and analyzed at the laboratory of Natural History Museum, University Of Oslo, Norway. Agglomerative hierarchical classification with the application of R-computer programing (R Version 3.0.2) was used to identify plant communities. Simple preference ranking, direct matrix ranking, informant consensus factor (ICF) and fidelity level (FL) were calculated to analyze the ethnobotanical data. Genomic DNA was extracted from silica-gel-dried leaves, voucher specimens and powdered medicinal plant samples to generate barcodes for ITS, rbcL and matK using specific primers and PCR amplification. All barcode sequences were queried using NCBI BLAST to cross-check morphological identifications. From Anabe and Gerfa-ourene forest patches a total of 128 plant species which belong to 114 genera and 60 families were recorded. From the total, 108 of the plant species representing 97 genera and 52 families were collected from Anabe Forest patch whereas 84 plant species representing 75 genera and 46 families were from Gerfa-ourene Forest patch. From the hierarchical cluster analysis, the vegetation in Anabe and Gerfa-ourene Forest patches were classified in to three plant community types each. The ethnobotanical study in Kalu District revealed 129 medicinal plant species that belong to 108 genera and 59 families. In Bati District, however, 94 traditional medicinal plant species belonging to 78 genera and 49 families were reported. The majority of human remedy preparations were from leaves (43% in Kalu and 29% in Bati) followed by roots (11% in kalu and 17% in Bati) and the highest ICF values were recorded for back pain in humans in both districts (0.94 in Kalu, 0.96 in Bati). The highest FL values of human medicinal plants were recorded for Withania somnifera (93.5%) in Kalu District, and Terminalia brownii (95.96%) in Bati District. About 30.34% of the medicinal plants in both districts were cited for women’s health problems and for herbal cosmetics.The amplified products were used for sequencing and 154 samples were sequenced for three barcode regions (ITS, rbcL and matK). BLAST was used to compare sample sequences to the reference database and sequencing success was high for rbcL (97.4%) and ITS (96.1%), but lower for matK (76.0%). Anabe and Gerfa-ourene Forest patches are rich in species composition having 128 plant species which belong to 114 genera and 60 families. Both districts are rich in their medicinal plant composition having 145 medicinal plant species that belong to 116 genera and 62 families. Kalu and Bati Districts are rich in “women’s plants” and herbs used as cosmetics (44 species, which belong to 39 genera and 31 families). DNA barcoding method was attempted for identifying 154 medicinal and cosmetics plant materials including from markets with high percentage of success.
Description
Keywords
Bati, Ethnobotany, Kalu, Matk, ITS, rbcL, DNA barcoding