Oil-bearing plants of the Amazon basin: ethnobotany and status of domestication

Tereza Hájková

Bachelor's thesis

Abstract:

Oil-rich plants were predominantly domesticated as sources of edible oil. These extracts most serve as the intake of microelements and vitamins for the human body but are also used in industry or as animal feed. Each plant has special mining and processing requirements. These oils are important in modern life, and most are derived from parent varieties. Ethnobotanic data was collected using abstract articles, primarily the ISI Web of Science and the Scopus database. The survey was applied to oilseeds that occurred in the Amazon region.A total of 47 species of oil plants belonged to 16 botanical families that reported they were most nutritionally effective or had good quality oil but were less used by locals. Emphasis is also placed on plants which are toxic, and people should be careful in processing and eating. The oil plant was mainly from the family Arecaceae. The richest in oil content was Caryocar coriaceum, Guilielma speciosa, Astrocaryum aculeatum, Oenocarpus bataua and one of the most exported and used oils was Cocos nucifera. Industrial processing was mainly for making soap, household use was widely used as cooking oil, and in medicine, the healing effects of some oils were noted. Most oilseeds are also rich in nutritional elements such as vitamins and fatty acids (lauric acid, linoleic acid, linolenic acid, palmitic acid, myristic acid, stearic acid and oleic acid) which have a positive effect on human health. The field of study is rich in the diversity of oil plants and related native knowledge but still needs further research and study.Therefore, it is important to document these plants as a source of human nutrition and thus to enrich some poor areas and it also appropriate to extend the cultivation of oil crops, but care must be taken to respect the ethnic groups living in the tropical rainforest to prevent farmers from cutting off rainforests to protect the biodiversity of the Amazon.

Keywords

Amazon, ethnobiology, vegetable oil, nutrition, underutilized species

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 20. 4. 2018

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: doc. Ing. Zbyněk Polesný, Ph.D.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences

Bachelor programme / field:
Agricultural Specialization / Agriculture in Tropics and Subtropics