title: Vernacular dominance in folk taxonomy: a case study of ethnospecies in medicinal plant trade in Tanzania.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Medicinal plants are traded as products with vernacular names, but these folk taxonomies do not always correspond one-to-one with scientific plant names. These local species entities can be defined as ethnospecies and can match, under-differentiate or over-differentiate as compared to scientific species. Identification of plant species in trade is further complicated by the processed state of the product, substitution and adulteration. In countries like Tanzania, an additional dimension to mapping folk taxonomies on scientific names is added by the multitude of ethnicities and languages of the plant collectors, traders and consumers. This study aims to elucidate the relations between the most common vernacular names and the ethnicity of the individual traders among the medicinal plant markets in Dar es Salaam and Tanga regions in Tanzania, with the aim of understanding the dynamics of vernacular names in plant trade.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 90 respondents were interviewed in local markets using semi-structured interviews. The ethnicity of each respondent was recorded, as well as the language of each ethnospecies mentioned during the interviews. Voucher collections and reference literature were used to match ethnospecies across languages.
  
  
  RESULTS
  At each market, the language of the majority of the vendors dominates the names for medicinal products. The dominant vendors often represent the major ethnic groups of that region. Independent of their ethnicity, vendors offer their products in the dominant language of the specific region without apparently leading to any confusion or species mismatching.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Middlemen, traders and vendors adapt their folk classifications to those of the ethnic groups of the region where they conduct their trade, and to the ethnicity of their main customers. The names in the language of the traders are not forgotten, but relegated in favor of the more salient names of the dominant tribe.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Traditional Medicine, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, P.O. Box 65001, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. onicolao@yahoo.co.uk.
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Otieno
authors.affiliation: Institute of Traditional Medicine, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, P.O. Box 65001, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. sabihudi@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Siri
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Abihudi
authors.affiliation: Department of Organismal Biology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18D, SE-75236, Uppsala, Sweden. sarina.veldman@ebc.uu.se.
authors.forename: Sarina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Veldman
authors.affiliation: Department of Organismal Biology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18D, SE-75236, Uppsala, Sweden. michaelkags_85@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nahashon
authors.affiliation: Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Darwinweg 4, Postbus 9517, 2300 RA, Leiden, The Netherlands. tinde.vanandel@naturalis.nl.
authors.forename: Tinde
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: van Andel
authors.affiliation: Department of Organismal Biology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18D, SE-75236, Uppsala, Sweden. hugo.deboer@ebc.uu.se.|Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Darwinweg 4, Postbus 9517, 2300 RA, Leiden, The Netherlands. hugo.deboer@ebc.uu.se.|The Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1172, NO-0318, Oslo, Norway. hugo.deboer@ebc.uu.se.
authors.forename: Hugo J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: de Boer
mesh_terms: D003132:Commerce; D005006:Ethnicity; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D007802:Language; D016488:Medicine, African Traditional; D010946:Plants, Medicinal; D013636:Tanzania; D009626:Terminology as Topic