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Plants & People: The Intersection of Botany and Human Experience

Origin of Maqui in Chile

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Aristotelia chilensis: The Super Fruit Abstract
Aristotelia chilensis, more commonly known as the Maqui berry, is a delicious and nutritious plant that has been used by the Mapuche tribes and as commercial use since its cultivation. The plant grows best in Chile and in moist temperate environments. Being a part of the Elaeocarpaceae family, it is an angiosperm plant that is evergreen and has both male and female reproductive parts. The morphology of the plant consists of yellow clustered flowers, red stems, large dark green leaves, and vibrant purple berries. Domestication techniques like spring pruning ensure a higher plant yield, which proves to be beneficial as the demand for the super fruit grows higher. Features like ripeness and elevated anthocyanin levels are strongly correlated to increased antioxidant activity, proving the period of harvesting to be most essential for the cultivation of this fruit. The harvesting of this berry has mostly remained in Chile, but due to recent trends in eating healthy and nutritional foods, it has been commercialized by countries like the United States. The plant can be turned into powder, into wine, and be used for consumption along with it being used as a replacement of Western drugs. With its high genetic diversity, medicinal values, taste, and rich tribe history, this shrub has been labeled "the Super Fruit''. Maqui's high antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties demonstrate its potential for further medicinal use in the pharmaceutical industry, possibly even using the extract as treatment for psychiatric illness.

Nomenclature History
The plant Aristotelia chilensis, also known as the Maqui and Chilean Wineberry, originating from Chile was discovered by the Botanist Molina Stuntz. The berry can also be referred to as “maquei”, “quelon”, “quelron”, “koelon”, or “clon”. These names are usually derived from the Mapuche tribes who occupy reservations in Chile and who use the Maqui berry regularly.

Evolutionary History
The evolutionary history of the plant is that it originates from the Patagonia Andean forests. The plant belongs to the Elaeocarpaceae family and the Aristotelia genus. It shares dinucleotide sequences with the European alder, the Vaccinium macrocarpon-which is a cranberry-, and the mung bean (Vigna radiata). However, according to the article written by Gianoli et al. its sister group is the Eucryphia cordifolia which is part of the Cunoniaceae Family.

Ecology & Life History
The Berries are grown and harvested in the Chilean lands, and have remained preserved since their cultivation. The berry is sacred to the Mapuche Indians and so throughout its history, they have fought for it to remain in the sacred grounds. The habitat in which it thrives must be in edaphoclimatic conditions. The Chilean wineberry grows best in rich moist soil on the side of hills or edges of forests. It can branch out into new locations with grazed land and cultivate there. The plant can flourish in hot dry areas and temperate rainforests. On the other hand, due to its high genetic diversity, it can survive in less than ideal conditions. The high genetic diversity is from the way it pollinates, which is through wind and distribution by insects and birds. The life history of these plants have been related to the Mapuche tribe. Its antioxidant, medicinal properties, and flavor have been very useful to these people and so they have ensured the growth of them for centuries. They even have a century-old ancestral tradition of harvesting this berry, and so, have made the Maqui berry a sacred plant. As far as the research collected, the phylogenetic tree of these plants has many gaps in them. Specifically, there was no definitive wild type of Aristotelia Chilensis found. There are some close relatives as described before but the wild type of the plant is mostly unknown.

The Morphology (Vegetative & Reproductive)
The Morphology of Aristotelia chilensis is of a dioecious shrub with small white/yellow flowers, mature purple berries, green simple leaves, and red colored petioles. It grows up to 3-4m during its lifetime. This evergreen plant is dioecious but does not practice self fertilization. Instead, it uses its reproductive parts, the flowers, to attract insects and bees for cross pollination. A hermaphrodite flower morphology with unisexual functionalit has also occured. The flowers are of light yellow color and are in clusters. The flowers are facing towards the ground instead of up as to help the insects with pollination. The berries of the Maqui berry plant start off small, with green colors. Once Spring rolls around, the plant loses its vegitative state and becomes floral, while growing its berries. The berries turn into a dark purple color once they are in their mature forms. The Lanceolate leaves are a dark green color, with serrated margins, thin and flexible branches and are used to protect the plant while also conducting photosynthesis. There is not much information on the roots of this particular plant. However, an article written by Vogel et al. states that the roots will decrease in size when the flowering season begins because it is when the soil begins to dry due to the hotter temperatures.

Historical Accounts
The Mapuche people, an indigenous tribe with origins in the Central Valley of Chile, would rely on the therapeutic purposes of the plant's leaves to create herbal tea in order to treat diarrhea, acute tonsillitis, and ulcers. Additionally, they would harvest the berry in large quantities, picking them when the fruit was fully grown and vibrantly purple. Integral to their method of folk medicine, this berry was a go-to within home remedies due to its high antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. As an incredibly important part of Mapuche native culture, Maqui is a sacred plant that symbolizes good intention.

Domestication History
In Chile, Maqui is distributed from the Coquimbo region to the Aysén region. For certain countries like Japan, South Korea, Italy, and the United States, the fruit is not distributed as a fresh product but instead dried or frozen for industrial use. This is largely due to the fact that the fruit itself has a very short shelf life, making it highly unlikely that the fresh berries would survive international trade. Though there have been efforts to make Maqui an industrial crop, there has been no success as the required environmental conditions only allow this plant to be wild-crafted. In other words, the Maqui berry can only be collected by hand in its native ecosystem. Because of this limitation, there is a high demand for the berry but insufficient supply, allowing only small volumes to be exported to outside countries in the forms of powder, dried, frozen, juiced, or preserved fruit.

Further investigation into Maqui revealed a window of opportunity for genetic variation in the domestication of the berry. After much comparison, researchers spotted differences in the plant’s growth, leaf morphology, and fruit based on the latitudinal gradient of the species throughout Chile. Most of the noticeable phenotypic variation can be accredited to differences between provenances. Some genetic variation outside of their geographic origin may be due to genetic drift or stressors such as soil resource limitations.

Of the many changes introduced by genotypic variation, the most notable factor was its effect on anthocyanin levels. Manipulating the genotype of Maqui can successfully increase or decrease the anthocyanin content within the fruit. With the help of selection and breeding techniques, proper domestication of the fruit can result in a higher anti-diabetic effect as higher anthocyanin levels are strongly correlated to higher antioxidant activity.

Cultivation Practices
As previously described, Maqui is a wild-crafted plant, causing it to only be collected within its native origins in Chile. Due to the lack of commercial plantations and the heavy reliability on its native grounds, the berry can only be harvested between the months of December to February. Additionally, Maqui is best grown in areas with moderate air temperature of about 25℃ and a high temperature oscillation range of 12-17℃ as these conditions have been shown to stimulate higher anthocyanin content.
Following the traditional historical practice, about 30% of the berries are left on the plant tree in order to ensure regeneration. Harvesters travel the forest with tarps as men select and break branches off the trees and women beat the berries off the plant with the force of sticks. As a way to separate the fruits from the leaves, the collection of harvested plant material is placed into a sifter. Afterwards, the fruits and leaves are refrigerated as they are ready to be exported for future use.

For optimizing fruit production, one popular cultivation technique is pruning, where harvesters selectively remove branches from a tree to modify the growth habit of the fruit. By cutting a whole fruit-bearing branch of the Maqui plant, fruit yield would increase by maintaining cultivated plants small to facilitate harvest practices and renew bare branches. Such a method allowed for improved fruit quality while preserving sustainability for long-term production. Between various forms of pruning techniques like summer and spring heading, spring pruning demonstrated as the most effective as it favored the development of more vegetative and reproductive shoots along with an overall increase in fruit yield. Altogether, trial and error of pruning ultimately indicated that spring pruning and maintenance of a smaller plant size through branch renewal resulted in a higher fruit yield.
Nutritional Value
The nutritional benefits of Maqui can be largely credited to its high amount of phenolic compounds and anthocyanin content. In fact, the high demand of natural antioxidants within the berry itself renders it as one of the most exploited plant species in Chile. Both the fruits and leaves of the plant can be used for anti-inflammatory, analgesic, antioxidant, antidiabetic, antiviral, and antimicrobial activities. The anti-inflammatory features in the leaves alone can be used to treat diseases like kidney pain, fever, hemorrhoids, inflammation, diarrhea, and scars. Additionally, herbal medicine derived from the plant leaves can aid in treatment of tonsillitis and ulcers.

With its phenolic properties, the berry is able to implement antibacterial, anticarcinogenic, antifungal, and antiviral effects. Given that, the total phenolic content depends on the ripeness, harvest time, climate, and genotype of the fruit. Still, regardless of the drying method, the berry will remain rich in phenolic compounds, allowing it to fulfill its superfruit properties. Besides the phenolic content, the presence of anthocyanins is what primarily helps the fruit possess high antioxidant levels. The positively charged anthocyanins donate a proton to reactive free radical species, which inherently blocks the formation of new harmful radicals and neutralizes reactive oxygen species. Maqui’s protective feature against free radicals and oxidative damage adds another superfruit feature that grants it the power to reduce aging and disease development such as cancer.

Such high antioxidant activity explains why the World Health Organization(WHO) recommended Maqui consumption as the berry contains the daily recommended amount of antioxidants. Its antioxidant features have shown to be protective against acute ischemia in vivo in rats' hearts after the Maqui dosage in the study reduced lipid oxidation and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances(TBARS). Moreover, the berry also produces antiatherogenic effects by inhibiting low-density lipoprotein(LDL) oxidation and intracellular oxidative stress. Lastly, it can also perform as an antidiabetic agent as research has shown Maqui extract to effectively enhance the uptake of sugar into the muscle cells for energy production while simultaneously reducing blood glucose and insulin levels in the circulatory system. Though there is still no definite answer as to how it can produce such an effect, it is thought to either increase insulin sensitivity or inhibit glucose transporters in the intestine.
Human Experience
In both the past and present, Maqui has been used for three main functions: dyeing, consumption, and medicine. The organic pigment within the juice of the dark purple berry can be used for dyeing clothing along with food, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. Because of its intense coloration, Araucanian people within Chile use this pigment to dye wines known as Tecu. Additionally, individuals within the Aysén region also rely on the purified, anthocyanin-rich coloring of the fruit to dye juices, beverages, and food. Rather than relying on toxic, synthetic dyes, Maqui coloring can serve as a healthier alternative for clothing and food dyes, resulting in an increased demand for Maqui coloring in the European market.

Regarding its consumption and medicinal quality, it is no surprise that Maqui serves as the perfect fruit to use as a form of treatment due to its many superfruit properties described in the nutritional value category above. Not only does it provide a heavy load of nutritional benefits, but the powdered, dried leaves can be applied to the skin to aid in wound healing and scarring. Because of the anti-inflammatory properties, it can produce analgesic effects on the muscles, enforcing a relaxing action on the individual fibers.

Despite the many health benefits that Maqui can offer, there are still many unanswered questions as to how the plant operates within the body and what it is fully capable of. With further research, Maqui extract can be integrated into medicine, possibly revolutionizing specific forms of pharmaceutical treatment. After investigating recent studies, it is evident that this exciting process is slowly on its way as scientists are currently working on the microencapsulation of its phenolic compounds, producing anti-inflammatory medicine. Furthermore, current findings show that the high antioxidant content within Maqui extract shows potential for an antidepressive effect. After assigning a Maqui dosage to mice, the test subjects were found to have decreased levels of despair as the fruit content restored their normal behavior. More research is now underway to test Maqui’s effect on the treatment of mental disorders, potentially providing an opportunity for pharmacological therapy in psychiatric illnesses.

References:
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Doll, Ursula, Mosquiera, Daniela, Mosqueira, Javiera, González, Benita, & Vogel, Hermine. (n.d.). Pruning maqui (Aristotelia chilensis (Molina) Stuntz) to optimize fruit production | Elsevier Enhanced Reader. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmap.2016.12.001
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Lorenzo, Arianna Di Lorenzo, Sobolev, Anatoly P., Nabavi, Seyed Fazel, Sureda, Antoni, & Hajizadeh, Akbar. (n.d.). Antidepressive effects of a chemically characterized maqui berry extract (Aristotelia chilensis (molina) stuntz) in a mouse model of Post-stroke depression | Elsevier Enhanced Reader. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fct.2019.04.023
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