ID: 613 / 67

Category: Symposia

Track: Pending

Proposed Symposium Title: INTEGRATING FLORISTIC, BIOGEOGRAPHIC AND ETHNOBOTANICAL STUDIES FOR CONSERVATION

Abstract: Field studies remain essential today for the understanding of plant species and plant communities distributions in different ecosystems. And this is especially relevant in the tropics, where we have large areas with few information concerning how plants are distributed across forest types, elevation and/or latitude, and how human populations use and manage plants for their livelihoods and biocultural conservation. This symposium focuses on how integration of different botanical disciplines can shed light on global conservation for both plants and human societies that depend on them. Contributions will address topics along four lines: (1) understanding current plant distributions and the role of traditional use of the species in their distributions; (2) comparing the use and management of plant communities by different human groups across regions and continents; (3) analyzing the significance of plant functional traits in the provision of ecosystem services at different scales; and (4) integrating ecofloristic, biogeographical and ethnobotanical studies for global plant sustainability. This symposium may be of interest for IBC participants working on floristics, plant communities, functional diversity, and ethnobotany, particularly along the tropical biome.

Speaker 1: Name: Dr. Aida Cuni-Sánchez Institution: Department of International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric), Faculty of Landscape and Society, Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Ås, Norway. E-mail: a.cunisanchez@york.ac.uk Tentative talk title: From tree species to forest ecosystem services: insights from indigenous peoples in tropical Africa

Speaker 2: Name: Dr. Sebastian Tello Institution: Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, United States E-mail: JuanSebastian.Tello@mobot.org Tentative talk title: The effect of Andean uplift on tree community assemblage in the Andes

Speaker 3: Name: Dr. Manuel J. Macía Institution: Department of Biology (Botany), Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain E-mail: manuel.macia@uam.es Tentative talk title: Floristic composition and functional traits shape traditional use in western Amazonia

Topics (Up to three): Floristics

Topic 2: Ecology and Plant Communities

Topic 3: Ethnobotany

Justification: The proposed symposium is organized by a young Ecuadorean researcher (Selene Báez) and a senior Spanish Associate Professor (Manuel Macía). It is balanced in terms of gender, 1 woman and 1 man. This symposium has a multidisciplinary perspective and integrates the following proposed topics: Biogeography, Ecology and plant communities, Ethnobotany and Floristics. The three speakers, that already accepted to give a talk, are 1 woman young researcher working in tropical Africa (Aida Cuni-Sánchez, Norway), and 2 men senior resarchers working in Bolivia (Sebastian Tello, United States), and western South America (Manuel Macía, Spain).