Researchers have argued that indigenous peoples preferably use the most apparent plant species, particularly for medicinal uses. However, the association between the ecological importance of a species and its usefulness remains unclear. In this paper we quantify such association for six use categories (firewood, construction, materials, food, medicines and other uses). We collected data on the uses of 58 tree species, as reported by 93 informants in 22 villages in the Tsimane' territory (Bolivian Amazon). We calculated the ecological importance of the same species by deriving their importance value index (IVI) in 48 0.1-ha old-growth forest plots. Matching both data sets, we found a positive relation between the IVI of a species and its overall use value (UV) as well as with its UV for construction and materials. We found a negative relation between IVI and UV for species that were reportedly used for medicine and food uses, and no clear pattern for the other categories. We hypothesize that species used for construction or crafting purposes because of their physical properties are more easily substitutable than species used for medicinal or edible purposes because of their chemical properties.

中文翻译：

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生态上重要的树种是最有用的吗？玻利维亚亚马逊土著人的案例研究。

研究人员认为，土著人民更喜欢使用最明显的植物物种，特别是用于药用。然而，一个物种的生态重要性与其有用性之间的关联仍不清楚。在本文中，我们将这种关联量化为六个使用类别（木柴、建筑、材料、食品、药品和其他用途）。我们收集了 Tsimane 地区（玻利维亚亚马逊地区）22 个村庄的 93 名线人报告的 58 种树种的使用数据。我们通过在 48 个 0.1 公顷的老林地块中推导出它们的重要性值指数 (IVI) 来计算同一物种的生态重要性。匹配这两个数据集，我们发现一个物种的 IVI 与其总体使用价值 (UV) 以及其用于建筑和材料的 UV 之间存在正相关关系。对于据报道用于医药和食品用途的物种，我们发现 IVI 和 UV 之间存在负相关关系，而其他类别则没有明确的模式。我们假设由于其物理特性而用于建筑或手工艺目的的物种比由于其化学特性而用于药用或食用目的的物种更容易被替代。