Irene Teixidor Toneu

Academic interests

Ethnobotany and ethnomedicine, cultural evolution and evolutionary medicine, biodiversity and biocultural conservation, inter-disciplinary approaches to study biocultural diversity.

Background

I am an ethnobotanist with experience in medicinal plant ethnographic research and cross-cultural quantitative analysis of medical systems. I have a PhD as an Early Stage Researcher in the MSCA-ITN "MedPlant: Phylogenetic exploration of medicinal plant diversity" where I studied Amazigh medicinal plant use in Morocco. I later contributed with ethnobiological research to sustainable development projects led by the Global Diversity Foundation in the Moroccan High Atlas. My academic and professional aims are to contribute to the understanding of the role of past and present cultures in shaping landscapes and biodiversity patterns, especially through their selection and use of medicinal plants. With this understanding, I aim to have a positive impact by addressing issues of biodiversity conservation, food and health security, and provide recommendations to implement priority integrative biocultural conservation strategies.

Awards

• 2017 PhD Researcher of the Year, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Reading (UK) 

Positions held

• Postdoctoral fellow at the Natural History Museum, University of Oslo (Norway)
• Research Consultant for the Global Diversity Foundation (non-profit organisation, UK & Morocco) 
  • https://www.global-diversity.org/team/irene-teixidor-toneu/
• Early Stage Researcher at the University of Reading (UK) - MSCA-ITN MedPlant "Phylogenetic exploration of medicinal plant diversity"
  • http://medplant.eu/staff/irene-teixidor/

Publications

Teixidor-Toneu, I., Jordan, F.M., Hawkins, J.A. 2018. Comparative phylogenetic methods and the cultural evolution of medicinal plant use. Nature Plants, DOI 10.1038/s41477-018-0226-6.

Miara, M.D., Bendif, H., Ait Hammou, M., Teixidor-Toneu, I. 2018. Ethnobotanical survey of medicinal plants used by nomadic peoples in the Algerian steppe. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 219, 248-256.

Alqethami, A., Hawkins, J.A., Teixidor-Toneu, I. 2017. Medicinal plants used by women in Mecca: urban, Muslim and gendered knowledge. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, 13:62.

Hawkins, J.A., Teixidor-Toneu, I. 2017. Defining ‘ethnobotanical convergence’. Trends in Plant Science, 22, 639-640.

Teixidor-Toneu, I., Martin, G.J., Puri, R.K., Ouhammou, A., Hawkins, J.A. 2017. Treating infants with frigg: Linking disease aetiologies, medicinal plant use and care-seeking behaviour in southern Morocco. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, 13:4.

Teixidor-Toneu, I., Martin, G.J., Ouhammou, A., Puri, R.K., Hawkins, J.A., 2016. An ethnomedicinal survey of a Tashelhit-speaking community in the High Atlas, Morocco. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 188, 96-110.

Teixidor-Toneu, I., Martin, G.J., Ouhammou, A., Puri, R.K., Hawkins, J.A., 2016. Comprehensive dataset of the medicinal plants used by a Tashelhit-speaking community in the High Atlas, Morocco. Data in Brief, 8, 516-519.