Distribution of Therapeutic Efficacy of Ranunculales Plants Used by Ethnic Minorities on the Phylogenetic Tree of Chinese Species

Abstract

The medicinal properties of plants can be evolutionarily predicted by phylogeny-based methods, which, however, have not been used to explore the regularity of therapeutic effects of Chinese plants utilized by ethnic minorities. This study aims at exploring the distribution law of therapeutic efficacy of Ranunculales plants on the phylogenetic tree of Chinese species. We collected therapeutic efficacy data of 551 ethnomedicinal species belonging to five species-rich families of Ranunculales; these therapeutic data were divided into 15 categories according to the impacted tissues and organs. The phylogenetic tree of angiosperm species was used to analyze the phylogenetic signals of ethnomedicinal plants by calculating the net relatedness index (NRI) and nearest taxon index (NTI) in R language. The NRI results revealed a clustered structure for eight medicinal categories (poisoning/intoxication, circulatory, gastrointestinal, eyesight, oral, pediatric, skin, and urinary disorders) and overdispersion for the remaining seven (neurological, general, hepatobiliary, musculoskeletal, otolaryngologic, reproductive, and respiratory disorders), while the NTI metric identified the clustered structure for all. Statistically, NRI and NTI values were significant in 5 and 11 categories, respectively. It was found that Mahonia eurybracteata has therapeutic effects on all categories. iTOL was used to visualize the distribution of treatment efficacy on species phylogenetic trees. By figuring out the distribution of therapeutic effects of Ranunculales medicinal plants, the importance of phylogenetic methods in finding potential medicinal resources is highlighted; NRI, NTI, and similar indices can be calculated to help find taxonomic groups with medicinal efficacy based on the phylogenetic tree of flora in different geographic regions.

Figure 1

Distribution of 15 therapeutic efficacies of Chinese ethnomedicinal species on the phylogenetic tree of Chinese angiosperms. There are 1,519 Chinese Ranunculales species in this large tree, including 725 Ranunculaceae species (yellow in the inner circle), 306 Berberidaceae species (green), 78 Menispermaceae species (blue), 44 Lardizabalaceae species (red), 364 Papaveraceae species (purple), one Eupteleaceae species, and one Circaeasteraceae species. From the inside to the outside of the outer circle are poisoning, circulatory diseases, gastrointestinal diseases, nervous system diseases, eye diseases, other/general diseases, hepatobiliary diseases, musculoskeletal diseases, oral diseases, ear/nose/throat diseases, pediatric diseases, reproductive system diseases, respiratory diseases, skin diseases, and urinary diseases.