ID: 613 / 8

Category: Symposia

Track: Pending

Proposed Symposium Title: MERGING EVOLUTIONARY APPROACHES WITH ETHNOBOTANICAL KNOWLEDGE

Abstract: Recognizing and preserving the practical and sustainable use of plants is at the heart of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework agenda [1], which has boosted a bourgeoning interest in exploring new perspectives to study the relationship between humans and natural resources. In this regard, evolutionary approaches have recently emerged as a powerful means to better understanding and preserving the beneficial potential of plant biodiversity [2]. This symposium will serve to bring together the most recent advances in the study of ethnobotanical knowledge from an evolutionary angle, including macroevolutionary perspectives for conservation [3], the incorporation of cultural evolution as a driver of plant use patterns [4], and the linkage between the latter with species’ evolutionary history and functional traits [5] among other prospects. The symposium accommodates a novel multi-disciplinary perspective that bridges few of the proposed topics of the IBC, including conservation biology, ecology, ethnobotany, macroevolution, and phylogenetics, and thus we are confident that the proposal will rises a great interest among the attendees of the congress. References [1] Erdelen (2020) Glob Policy 11, 347-359 [2] Teixidor-Toneu et al (2018) Nat Plants 4, 754-761 [3] Molina-Venegas et al (2021) Nat Ecol Evol 5, 583-588 [4] Teixidor-Toneu et al (2021) Proc R Soc B 376, 20200086 [5] Cámara-Leret et al (2017) Nat Ecol Evol 3, 16220

Speaker 1: * Rafael Molina Venegas * Universidad Autónoma de Madrid * rafael.molina@uam.es * Molecular phylogenies are powerful means to understand, prospect, and preserve the beneficial potential of plant biodiversity

Speaker 2: * Irene Teixidor-Toneu * French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development * i.t.toneu@nhm.uio.no * Evolutionary exploration of ethnobotanical knowledge dynamics across time scales in the Nordic region

Speaker 3: * Rodrigo Cámara Leret * University of Zurich * rodrigo.camaraleret@ieu.uzh.ch * Unveiling the hidden web of knowledge

Topics (Up to three): Ethnobotany

Topic 2: Macroevolution

Topic 3: Ecology and Plant Communities

Justification: The symposium will bring together three young researchers (first SCI paper published after 2010) from three different institutions and countries (Spain, France, and Switzerland) that work in different areas of the evolutionary ethnobiology discipline with proved success, including publications as first author in top-tier journals such as PNAS, Nature Ecology & Evolution and Nature Plants among others (none of the three speakers, namely Irene Teixidor-Toneu, Rodrigo Cámara-Leret, and Rafael Molina Venegas, share any co-authorship), which speaks volumes of the quality of the symposium and the potential interest that it may rise among the audience.