Living among a wide variety of plants helped human wellbeing

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-03-30 02:00

Australia; International; NSW

Living among the widest variety of genetically different plants is most likely to result in the greatest benefit to humans, according to Australian and international research. The researchers found that maximum levels of global plant diversity can give rise to more benefits for humans than randomly selecting plant groups, as it allows us to benefit from some of the rarest uses for plants. The researchers say their study establishes a foundation that links evolutionary history to human wellbeing.

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Journal/
conference: Nature Ecology & Evolution

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Macquarie University, Universidad de Alcalá, Spain

Funder: This work was supported by the Regional Government of the Community of Madrid and the University of Alcalá through the project ‘Plant evolutionary history and human wellbeing in a changing world; assessing theoretical foundations using empirical evidence and new phylogenetic tools’, which was granted to R.M.-V. (CM/JIN/2019-005). R.M.-V. was supported by the TALENTO programme of the Regional Government of the Community of Madrid (2018-T2/AMB-10332). M.Á.R. was supported by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain (grant CGL2017-86926-P).

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