XVI International Botanical Congess

In exploring the application of ecological methods, analyses, and theory to ethnobotany, we will begin our symposium at a genetic level and proceed through progressively larger scales. Ecological genetics is the study of the genetic adaptation of populations to their environment, and the mechanisms by which they respond to environmental change. People affect great environmental change to which plants respond. My research on cocona or the peach tomato (Solanum sessiliflorum Dunal) experimentally models the genetics of its domestication using typical methods, analyses and theory from ecological genetics (reciprocal transplants, gene flow experiments, estimation of selection pressure, etc.). The experimentally derived results (maternal inheritance and population dissection by inbreeding) are not typical for domestication models. These ecological methods promise new insights into traditional ethnobotanical questions. Issues include in situ conservation and indigenous knowledge of plant breeding.