Myths of the pristine – from “natural” vegetation to “ancestral” knowledge of edible plants
Rainer W. Bussmann - State Museum for Natural History Karlsruhe, Germany and Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia
Over the last decade, vegetation science has made great strides classifying the worlds’ vegetation communities. Simultaneously, aspects of the use of vegetation or individual plant species, as well as the impact of global change on vegetation distribution, migration of species, and livelihoods of communities around the globe have become important focal points. The ecology of edible species, in particular as sources for potential future food plants, have become fashionable study subjects, even more so since the Covid-19 pandemic.
On the vegetation side, much focus has been seen on finding and describing “natural” vegetation units around the globe, often without any reference to the historic context of anthropogenic impact, leading to a plethora of publications highlighting the “pristine” character e.g. of tropical forests or alpine and subalpine communities.
On the ethnobotanical side research has often moved from simple species inventories to detailed quantitative studies, genomics, and the elucidation of active compounds.
These developments, while highly important have also led to some disadvantages. On the one hand, the focus on “modern” studies has led to a decline of knowledge on, and publications of classic taxonomic studies, and field studies, and often neglect of classic herbaria. On the other hand, the very widespread use of statistical indices both in ecology and e.g., ethnobotanical field research has led to a virtual inflation of index use, with the application of often only one index, and wrongly extrapolating on plant importance from this, or applying multiple indices, but coming to wrong conclusions, especially with regard to conservation implications or the “usefulness of plants for further development.”
In this talk, we assess the myths of pristinity both with regard to vegetation units, as well as ancestral / traditional knowledge with regard to edible plant species and their possible use in the context of food security.
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Zsolt Molnár - HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research Institute of Ecology and Botany, Hungary
I will share my transdisciplinary research experience with traditional herders and farmers about plants, vegetation and landscapes. Our key research approach is participatory field work accompanied with in-door and out-door interviews and followed by knowledge co-production and co-publication, co-presentation for better management and better conservation. In our research group we are focusing on wild habitats and grazing management, doing field work in Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Mongolia, Iran and Kenya. I will speak about differences and similarities of traditional plant knowledge, and the influence of local ecology and culture on this knowledge. A typical example of our publications are the slow films available on YouTube (e.g. An afternoon of the pasture with the shepherd László Sáfián).
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Paola Angelini - University of Perugia, Italy
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Photorespiratory carbon assimilation in wild edible plants
Chandra Bellasio - University of Perugia, Italy
In this talk, I will provide a brief overview of alternative pathways through which plants assimilate carbon via photorespiration, including the export of photorespiratory amino acids, assimilation through C1 metabolism, and C2 photosynthesis. C2 photosynthesis, a CO₂ concentrating mechanism that captures, concentrates, and re-assimilates CO₂ released during photorespiration, has garnered renewed interest in recent years. This glycine shuttle effectively triples the CO₂ concentration in bundle sheath cells, facilitating its reassimilation by the chloroplast. Efforts to engineer C2 photosynthesis in C3 plants have encountered challenges and have yet to produce a working prototype of an engineered C2 crop. C2 photosynthesis may be more widespread than current records suggest. Recent discoveries show that species like Diplotaxis tenuifolia, a relative of rocket, along with other Brassicaceae, utilize this pathway. These findings highlight the potential of exploiting natural variability in wild edible plants as a tractable route to improve food security.
FuD WE PIC project
Corrado Marcenò - University of Perugia, Italy
The project "FuD WE PIC" is specifically devoted to address the contribution of land-use, landscape patterns (fragmentation and heterogeneity) and climatic variables to the preservation of wild edible plants (WEPs) and related ecosystem services, under a multidisciplinary framework involving Bioclimatology, Ethnobotany, Vegetation and Landscape Ecology. The project will perform a comprehensive investigation, based on vegetation plots data, to assess WEP species diversity in different habitats/ecoregions and to explore the correlations between environmental variables and species diversity.
The project consists of 5 main work packages (WP): WP1 will set up a unified infrastructure to collect and share the data; WP2 will focus on measuring and comparing landscape patterns, climatic variables and WEPs diversity; WP3 will combine WEPs traits and species richness to explore the influence of specific traits and species assemblages in the biodiversity–climate–land-use–WEPs feedback system; WP4 will model losses and gains of WEPs —and related ecosystem services— under different climate and land-use change scenarios; WP5 will analyse the effects of landscape attributes and WEPs on the resilience of Traditional Environmental Knowledge (TEK) and folk perceptions of the oikos.
Our main targets to be achieved will be: i) the characterization of WEPs biological, functional and coenological diversity; ii) the analysis and distribution patterns of ecosystem services related to WEPs, in terms of provisioning and cultural assets; iii) provision of theoretical and practical tools for a better management of WEPs diversity under climate change scenarios; iv) contribution to livelihoods, traditional ecological knowledge and cultural distinctiveness.
AlimurgITA: a database of the Italian alimurgic flora
Bruno Paura - University of Molise, Campobasso, Italy
The AlimurgITA portal is a user-friendly and effective tool for researching Wild Edible Plants (WEPs). It provides valuable information on alimurgic plant species, aiding conservation and potential agricultural applications. With an increasing interest in WEPs known for their organoleptic qualities and low energy cultivation requirements, understanding the species that use minimal water is crucial amid global change. Users can interact with authors to report errors and contribute to the knowledge base regarding local uses. The site will be updated every six months to include new scientific publications on ethnobotany and alimurgy. Additionally, within the FuD WE PIC Project, the AlimurgITA entity list is being integrated with Italian vegetation data from the European Vegetation Archive. This aims to model WEPs richness, identify diversity hotspots, and explore the relationship between WEPs diversity and habitat types.
