Wild edible plants as biocultural heritage: biodiversity and food traditions in Puglia (Italy)

Puglia (Southern Italy) boasts a rich tradition of wild edible plant (WEP) use, yet the relationship between this living biocultural heritage and its formal institutional recognition through the regional list of Traditional Agri-Food Products (TAPs) remains largely unexplored. This exploratory study combines a systematic screening of the 2025 TAPs list with an online regional consumer questionnaire administered to 303 residents of Puglia, aiming to: (i) analyze the presence and taxonomic diversity of WEPs within the TAPs list; (ii) identify species frequently cited by consumers but absent from the list, which may merit further historical, gastronomic, institutional and institutional investigation; and (iii) document the self-reported knowledge, visual recognition, and consumption patterns of WEPs among survey participants. The TAPs analysis identified 35 WEP species across 15 botanical families, included in 96 products (about 25% of total Puglia TAPs) with Asteraceae , Apiaceae , and Lamiaceae as the most represented families. The questionnaire revealed a broader and more dynamic consumer knowledge of WEPs with 13 additional species cited beyond those in the TAPs list. Among these, Taraxacum officinale F.H.Wigg. was spontaneously mentioned by 5.8% of participants but remains entirely absent from the regional TAPs list. The most frequently self-reported species were Cichorium intybus L., Diplotaxis tenuifolia (L.) DC., and Asparagus acutifolius L., all strongly associated with traditional dishes. Procurement occurred primarily through wild gathering (about 75% of participants), with countryside respondents reporting the highest consumption rates for most species. The study highlights a structural mismatch between the formal TAPs list and living consumer practices, underscoring the importance of integrating ethnobotanical and socio-gastronomic evidence into future policy reviews for the preservation of Puglia's biocultural heritage. Given the non-probabilistic sampling design, all findings should be interpreted as exploratory and hypothesis-generating rather than population-representative.