Background The collection and consumption of wild edibles is an important part in livelihood strategies throughout the world. There is an urgent need to document and safeguard the wild food knowledge, especially in remote areas. The aims of this study are to accomplish detailed investigation of wild edibles used by the Naxi in Baidi village and evaluate them to identify innovative organic food products. Also, we aim to explore the characteristics of distribution and transmission of the traditional knowledge (TK) on wild edibles among the Naxi. Methods Data was collected through a semi-structured interview of key informants above the age of 20 years, chosen carefully by a snowball sampling. The interviews were supplemented by free lists and participatory observation methods. Informants below 20 years were interviewed to test their knowledge of traditional practices. A quantitative index like Cultural Importance Index (CI) was used to evaluate the relative importance of the different wild edibles. Linear regression and t-test were performed to test variation in the TK among the informants of different age groups and genders. Results Altogether 173 wild edible plant species belonging to 76 families and 139 genera were recorded in the study. Cardamine macrophylla, C. tangutorum and Eutrema yunnanense, have traditionally been consumed as an important supplement to the diet, particularly during food shortages as wild vegetables. The age was found to have a significant effect on TK, but there was no significant difference between male and female informant in knowledge abundance. The traditional food knowledge was dynamic and affected by social factors. Also, it was descending partly among younger generations in Baidi. Conclusion Baidi village is a prime example of a rapidly changing community where local traditions compete with modern ways of life. Overall, this study provides a deeper understanding of the Naxi peoples' knowledge on wild edibles. Some wild edibles might have an interesting dietary constituent, which need in-depth studies. Such detail studies can help to promote the market in one hand and protect TK in the other. Protecting TK from disappearing in succeeding generations is necessary, and understanding the dynamics of TK is one important solution to this dilemma.

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To enhance our understanding of dietary adaptations and socioecological correlates in colobines, we conducted a 20-mo study of a wild group of Rhinopithecus bieti (Yunnan snub-nosed monkeys) in the montane Samage Forest. This forest supports a patchwork of evergreen broadleaved, evergreen coniferous, and mixed deciduous broadleaved/coniferous forest assemblages with a total of 80 tree species in 23 families. The most common plant families by basal area are the predominantly evergreen Pinaceae and Fagaceae, comprising 69% of the total tree biomass. Previous work has shown that lichens formed a consistent component in the monkeys' diet year-round (67%), seasonally complemented with fruits and young leaves. Our study showed that although the majority of the diet was provided by 6 plant genera (Acanthopanax, Sorbus, Acer, Fargesia, Pterocarya, and Cornus), the monkeys fed on 94 plant species and on 150 specific food items. The subjects expressed high selectivity for uncommon angiosperm tree species. The average number of plant species used per month was 16. Dietary diversity varied seasonally, being lowest during the winter and rising dramatically in the spring. The monkeys consumed bamboo shoots in the summer and bamboo leaves throughout the year. The monkeys also foraged on terrestrial herbs and mushrooms, dug up tubers, and consumed the flesh of a mammal (flying squirrel). We also provide a preliminary evaluation of feeding competition in Rhinopithecus bieti and find that the high selectivity for uncommon seasonal plant food items distributed in clumped patches might create the potential for food competition. The finding is corroborated by observations that the subjects occasionally depleted leafy food patches and stayed at a greater distance from neighboring conspecifics while feeding than while resting. Key findings of this work are that Yunnan snub-nosed monkeys have a much more species-rich plant diet than was previously believed and are probably subject to moderate feeding competition.

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Chickpea (Cicerarietinum, Leguminosae), an important grain legume, is widely used for food and fodder throughout the world. We sequenced the complete plastid genome of chickpea, which is 125,319bp in size, and contains only one copy of the inverted repeat (IR). The genome encodes 108 genes, including 4 rRNAs, 29 tRNAs, and 75 proteins. The genes rps16, infA, and ycf4 are absent in the chickpea plastid genome, and ndhB has an internal stop codon in the 5'exon, similar to other legumes. Two genes have lost their introns, one in the 3'exon of the transpliced gene rps12, and the one between exons 1 and 2 of clpP; this represents the first documented case of the loss of introns from both of these genes in the same plastid genome. An extensive phylogenetic survey of these intron losses was performed on 302 taxa across legumes and the related family Polygalaceae. The clpP intron has been lost exclusively in taxa from the temperate "IR-lacking clade" (IRLC), whereas the rps12 intron has been lost in most members of the IRLC (with the exception of Wisteria, Callerya, Afgekia, and certain species of Millettia, which represent the earliest diverging lineages of this clade), and in the tribe Desmodieae, which is closely related to the tribes Phaseoleae and Psoraleeae. Data provided here suggest that the loss of the rps12 intron occurred after the loss of the IR. The two new genomic changes identified in the present study provide additional support of the monophyly of the IR-loss clade, and resolution of the pattern of the earliest-branching lineages in this clade. The availability of the complete chickpea plastid genome sequence also provides valuable information on intergenic spacer regions among legumes and endogenous regulatory sequences for plastid genetic engineering.

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Penalized likelihood estimated ages of both densely sampled intracontinental and sparsely sampled transcontinental crown clades in the legume family show a mostly Quaternary to Neogene age distribution. The mode ages of the intracontinental crown clades range from 4-6 Myr ago, whereas those of the transcontinental crown clades range from 8-16 Myr ago. Both of these young age estimates are detected despite methodological approaches that bias results toward older ages. Hypotheses that resort to vicariance or continental history to explain continental disjunct distributions are dismissed because they require mostly Palaeogene and older tectonic events. An alternative explanation centring on dispersal that may well explain the geographical as well as the ecological phylogenetic structure of legume phylogenies is Hubbell's unified neutral theory of biodiversity and biogeography. This is the only dispersalist theory that encompasses evolutionary time and makes predictions about phylogenetic structure.

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