Barcoding and traditional health practitioner perspectives are informative to monitor and conserve frogs and reptiles traded for traditional medicine in urban South Africa

Author:

Phaka Fortunate M.123ORCID,Netherlands Edward C.14ORCID,Van Steenberge Maarten256ORCID,Verheyen Erik57ORCID,Sonet Gontran5ORCID,Hugé Jean28ORCID,du Preez Louis H.13ORCID,Vanhove Maarten P. M.26ORCID

Affiliation:

1. African Amphibian Conservation Research Group, Unit for Environmental Sciences and Management North‐West University Potchefstroom Republic of South Africa

2. Centre for Environmental Sciences, Research Group Zoology: Biodiversity and Toxicology Hasselt University Diepenbeek Belgium

3. South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity Makhanda Republic of South Africa

4. Department of Zoology and Entomology, Natural and Agricultural Sciences Faculty University of the Free State Bloemfontein Republic of South Africa

5. Operational Directorate Taxonomy and Phylogeny Royal Belgian Institute for Natural Sciences Brussels Belgium

6. Laboratory of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Genomics, Department of Biology University of Leuven Leuven Belgium

7. Evolutionary Ecology Research Group, Biology Department University of Antwerp Antwerp Belgium

8. Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science Open University of the Netherlands Heerlen the Netherlands

Abstract

AbstractPrevious literature suggests that Indigenous cultural practices, specifically traditional medicine, are commonplace among urban communities contrary to the general conception that such practices are restricted to rural societies. We reviewed previous literature for records of herptiles (frog and reptile species) sold by traditional health practitioners in urban South Africa, then used visual confirmation surveys, DNA barcoding and folk taxonomy to identify the herptile species that were on sale. Additionally, we interviewed 11 IsiZulu and SePedi speaking traditional health practitioners to document details of the collection and pricing of herptile specimens along with the practitioners' views of current conservation measures for traditional medicine markets. The 34 herptile species recorded in previous literature on traditional medicine markets included endangered and non‐native species. Spectrophotometry measurements of the DNA we extracted from the tissue of herptiles used in traditional medicine were an unreliable predictor of whether those extractions would be suitable for further experimental work. From our initial set of 111 tissue samples, 81 sequencing reactions were successful and 55 of those sequences had species‐level matches to COI reference sequences on the NCBI GenBank and/or BOLD databases. Molecular identification revealed that traditional health practitioners correctly labelled 77% of the samples that we successfully identified with DNA barcoding in this study. Our mixed methodology approach is useful for conservation planning as it updates knowledge of animal use in Indigenous remedies and can accurately identify species of high conservation priority. Furthermore, this study highlights the possibility of collaborative conservation planning with traditional health practitioners.

Funder

Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek

National Research Foundation

Universiteit Hasselt

Vlaamse Interuniversitaire Raad

Publisher

Wiley

Subject

Genetics,Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics,Biotechnology

Reference62 articles.

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