The cultural keystone species theory predicts plant species that are culturally important, play a role in resource acquisition, fulfil a psycho-socio-cultural function within a given culture, have high use-value, have an associated naming and terminology in a native language, and a high level of species irreplaceability qualify for cultural keystone species designation. This theory was proposed as a framework for understanding relationships between human societies and species that are integral to their culture. A greater understanding of the dynamic roles of cultural keystones in both ecosystem processes and cultural societies is a foundation for facilitating biocultural conservation. Given such important direct conservation implications of the cultural keystone species theory, we reviewed the use of this theoretical framework across the literature to identify new directions for research. Most studies often emphasized the role of cultural keystones species in human societies but failed to provide a robust and reproducible measure of cultural keystone species status or direct test of the predictions of the theory and underemphasized their potential roles in ecosystem processes. To date, no studies that mentioned cultural keystone species tested the predictions of the theory. Only 4.4% provided a measure for cultural keystone status and 47.4% have cited or applied keystone designation to a given species without providing a reproducible measure for cultural keystone species. Studies that provided a measure for cultural keystone species primarily occurred in North America while few of these studies occurred in Australia and Europe with none occurring in Africa. As such, most cultural keystone species have been designated as such qualitatively based on researcher subjectivity while other studies have designated keystone species with quantitative indices of cultural importance, often incorporating researcher biases or measuring a few of the cultural keystone status predictors rather than all of them, indicating a lack of consensus in identifying cultural keystone species. Thus, we pose the need for a paradigm shift toward the development of serious and systematic approaches for keystone designation.

中文翻译：

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重新审视文化关键物种：我们是否提出了正确的问题？


文化基石物种理论预测植物物种具有重要的文化意义，在资源获取中发挥作用，在特定文化中履行心理社会文化功能，具有较高的使用价值，在母语中具有相关的命名和术语，高度的物种不可替代性有资格被指定为文化重点物种。该理论被提出作为理解人类社会和物种之间关系的框架，这些关系是其文化的组成部分。更好地了解文化基石在生态系统过程和文化社会中的动态作用是促进生物文化保护的基础。鉴于文化关键物种理论如此重要的直接保护意义，我们回顾了该理论框架在文献中的使用，以确定新的研究方向。大多数研究往往强调文化关键物种在人类社会中的作用，但未能提供对文化关键物种状态的稳健且可重复的衡量标准或对理论预测的直接检验，并且低估了它们在生态系统过程中的潜在作用。迄今为止，还没有提到文化关键物种的研究检验了该理论的预测。只有 4.4% 提供了文化关键地位的衡量标准，47.4% 引用或应用了特定物种的关键指定，但没有提供文化关键物种的可重复衡量标准。提供文化关键物种衡量标准的研究主要发生在北美，而其中很少有研究发生在澳大利亚和欧洲，没有一个发生在非洲。 因此，大多数文化基石物种都是根据研究人员的主观性定性指定的，而其他研究则用文化重要性的定量指数来指定基石物种，通常会纳入研究人员的偏见或测量一些文化基石状态预测因素，而不是全部，表明在确定文化关键物种方面缺乏共识。因此，我们需要进行范式转变，以开发严肃和系统的重点指定方法。