Ethnobotany of the Mountain Regions of Central Asia and Altai

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 published over 115 papers in scientific, educational, and scientific-popular journals and over 250 book chapters. Since 2006 he has been cooperating with Ilia State University and became Professor of Ecology in 2012. Dr. Kikvidze is Full Professor and Director of the Instituteof Ethno-biology and Socio-ecology since 2014. 
Dr. Rainer W. Bussmann earned his M.Sc. (Diploma) in Biology from Universität Tübingen, Germany, in 1993 and his doctorate from Universität Bayreuth, Germany, in 1994. He is an ethnobotanist and vegetation ecologist, and currently Co-director of Saving Knowledge, La Paz, Bolivia, as well as Principal Scientist at the Department of Ethnobotany, Instituteof Botany, Ilia State University, both of which he co-founded. Before retiring from Missouri Botanical Garden, Dr. Bussmann was director of theWilliam L. Brown Center at Missouri Botanical Garden, William L. Brown Curator of Economic Botany, and Senior Curator. Before accepting the directorship of WLBC, he held academic appointments as Research Fellow in Geography and the Environment at the University of Texas at Austin from 2006 to 2007, as Associate Professor of Botany and Scientific Director of Harold Lyon Arboretum at the University of Hawaii from 2003 to 2006, and as Assistant Professor at the University of Bayreuth from 1997 to 2003, following a postdoc at the same institution from 1994 to 1997. He holds affiliate faculty appointments at Washington University St. Louis, USA; University of Missouri St. Louis, USA; Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, USA; Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Brazil; Universidád Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Perú; and at Ilia State University, Republi