Medicinal plants provide indigenous and peasant communities worldwide with means to meet their healthcare needs. Homegardens often act as medicine cabinets, providing easily accessible medicinal plants for household needs. Social structure and social exchanges have been proposed as factors influencing the species diversity that people maintain in their homegardens. Here, we assess the association between the exchange of medicinal knowledge and plant material and medicinal plant richness in homegardens. Using Tsimane' Amazonian homegardens as a case study, we explore whether social organization shapes exchanges of medicinal plant knowledge and medicinal plant material. We also use network centrality measures to evaluate people's location and performance in medicinal plant knowledge and plant material exchange networks. Our results suggest that social organization, specifically kinship and gender relations, influences medicinal plant exchange patterns significantly. Homegardens total and medicinal plant species richness are related to gardeners' centrality in the networks, whereby people with greater centrality maintain greater plant richness. Thus, together with agroecological conditions, social relations among gardeners and the culturally specific social structure seem to be important determinants of plant richness in homegardens. Understanding which factors pattern general species diversity in tropical homegardens, and medicinal plant diversity in particular, can help policy makers, health providers, and local communities to understand better how to promote and preserve medicinal plants in situ. Biocultural approaches that are also gender sensitive offer a culturally appropriate means to reduce the global and local loss of both biological and cultural diversity.

中文翻译：

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社会组织影响亚马逊家庭花园中药用植物的交换和物种丰富度

药用植物为世界各地的土著和农民社区提供满足其医疗保健需求的手段。家庭花园通常充当药柜，为家庭需要提供易于获取的药用植物。社会结构和社会交流被认为是影响人们在家园中维持的物种多样性的因素。在这里，我们评估了药用知识和植物材料的交流与家庭花园中药用植物丰富度之间的关联。我们以 Tsimane 的亚马逊家庭花园为例，探讨社会组织是否会影响药用植物知识和药用植物材料的交流。我们还使用网络中心性度量来评估人们在药用植物知识和植物材料交换网络中的位置和表现。我们的研究结果表明，社会组织，特别是亲属关系和性别关系，显着影响药用植物交换模式。家庭花园总数和药用植物物种丰富度与园丁在网络中的中心性有关，因此具有更大中心性的人保持更大的植物丰富度。因此，与农业生态条件一起，园丁之间的社会关系和特定文化的社会结构似乎是家庭花园植物丰富度的重要决定因素。了解热带家庭花园中一般物种多样性的影响因素，特别是药用植物多样性，可以帮助政策制定者、卫生提供者和当地社区更好地了解如何促进和保护原地药用植物。