Ethnobotany of the Caucasus focuses on the ethnobotany of wild and cultivated plants in this macroregion. The book is divided into sections covering countries (or groups of countries), based on plant diversity and not political or national boundaries. This Major Reference Work begins with an introduction to the region, followed by discussions of each sub-region, and plant chapters for over 1000 plant species. To further define the content, each section is divided into five major categories—food, medicine and veterinary/handicraft/ritual/folkloric uses.
Prof. Dr. Rainer W. Bussmann is an ethnobotanist and vegetation ecologist, and currently Head of the Department of Botany at the State Museum of Natural History in Karlsruhe, Germany. He is also a Full Professor of Ethnobotany at the Department of Ethnobotany, Institute of Botany, and School of Natural Sciences and Medicine at Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia. His work focuses on vegetation ecology and ethnobotanical research especially in the Andes, Caucasus, and the Himalayas. According to Stanford University, he is one of the most cited ethnobotanists and recognized among the most influential scientists worldwide. He currently serves as editor-in-chief of the "Ethnobotany of Mountain Regions" book series published by Springer Nature.
Dr. Narel Y. Paniagua-Zambrana is a Head and Senior Scientist at the Department of Ethnobotany. Institute of Botany, Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia, and is one of the most published researchers in Bolivia, according to a regional report by Elsevier. She is a member of the Society for Economic Botany, where she currently serves on the council, the Latin American Association of Botany, the Latin American Group of Ethnobotany - Bolivia Chapter, the Bolivian Organization for Women in Science, and the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD). Dr. Paniagua-Zambrana’s research focuses on documenting and protecting traditional knowledge of plant use by indigenous populations and local communities, especially in Bolivia, and taxonomically has mostly focused on native palms of the Andes and the Amazon. She works to provide local populations with tools that allow them to make decisions about the conservation of their natural resources and associated traditional knowledge and has worked consistently to disseminate the results of her research among the local communities with which she works.
Dr. Zaal Kikvidze is a Full professor of Ecology and the Director of the Institute of Ethno-biology and Socio-ecology, Ilia State University, Georgia. The major lines of his research are plant community ecology, species diversity and geographical distributions on ecological gradients, rules of species coexistence and interactions among organisms, environmental education, ethno-ecology and socio-ecology. Dr. Kikvidze has published over 100 papers in scientific, educational and scientific-popular journals, and over 500 book chapters.
