Nicholas Hind is head of the Compositae subsection at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. He has a worldwide interest in the family but specializes in the New World species, especially those of Brazil. In recent years he has worked on John Wood´s Bolivian collections and has prepared a literature-based inventory of Bolivia species available on line at www.kew.org/science/tropamerica/boliviacompositae. He supports the project through the identification of specimens and the provision of advice to project staff doing research at Kew, especially Paola Pozo.

Rosemary Wise is a botanical illustrator who Works at Oxford University and is also an honorary research associate at Kew. She has experience of drawing and painting plants from all parts of the world using both fresh and herbarium material. Within the project she has responsibility for providing training in botanical illustration as well as preparing colour plates for use in project posters on the plants of the cerrados.

Denis Filer is a research associate of the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Oxford. He developed the “Botanical Research and Herbarium Management System” (BRAHMS), software which is used in numerous herbaria throughout the World to store and process data, available at BRAHMS online dps.plants.ox.ac.uk/bol/ He is responsible for training project personnel in the use of BRAHMS and for giving advice and support with the system during the project.

Carolyn Proença has a doctorate in botanical science from thr University of Saint Andrews in Scotland. She has been a lecturer at the Universidad de Brasilia since 1992 and is curator of the university herbarium (UB). Her principal research interests are the conservation of the cerrados and the taxonomy of Myrtaceae, Bignoniaceae and their reproductive biology especially that of the Myrtaceae. She is also interested in floristics, phytogeography and fruit dispersal in cerrado plants. She has worked in the cerrados since 1981 and has published various books and numerous scientific articles.

Mike Hopkins lives in Manaos and currently works in the Amazonian biodiversity Project of the Brazilian government. He is responsible for the organization, maintenance and integration of the project’s data bases. He is interested in floras, the interaction between plants and animals and the modelling of computer programmes for biodiversity studies. In the project he helps with training in the use of BRAHMS and the import and use of data and images.

Hibert Huaylla was a research associate of the Herbario Chuquisaca (HSB) from2000-2006 and lecturer in the Universidad de San Francisco Xavier. He participated in the earlier Darwin project on endemism and plant conservation in the inter-Andean valleys and also carried out floristic studies in the Tucuman-Bolivian forest for the Missouri Botanical Garden (MO). He has published a field guide to the plants of Torotoro National Park. He is currently a research associate of the National Herbarium (LPB). His interests are in ferns, Iridaceae y Amaryllidaceae and he is responsible for helping the Project with Pteridophyta.

Steve Renvoize worked on world grasses for 40 years in the herbarium of the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew. He is an expert on South American grasses and Publisher various books and articles including “Las Gramíneas de Bolivia.” He has visited Bolivia on various occasions since 1980 and will help the project the identification of grasses.

William Hawthorne is a specialist in the evaluation of biodiversity through the use of Rapid Botanical Survey (RBS) methodology, a system which he has developed to assess the bio-quality of vegetation with special emphasis on tropical plant communities from a global conservation point of view. This involves research in various aspects of tropical botany including field identication and the development of a virtual herbarium (see http://herbaria/plants/ox/acVFH).

Moisés Mendoza studies Agronomy at the Juan MIsael Caracho University in Tarija. Since 1999 he has worked as a botanical research associate of the Herbario del Oriente Bolivia (USZ) of the Noel Kempff Mercado Natural History Museum. He has participated in various research projects related to floristic inventories, economic botany and ethno botany as well taxonomy, such as the former Darwin Project on botanical endemism in the central Andean valleys of Bolivia. He has visited the principal herbaria of the United States and the United Kingdom acquiring wide experience in the families: Apiaceae, Araliacaea, Cactaceae, Euphorbiaceae (Manihot) y Portulacaceae.

Doctor in biology and lecturer in Plant Diversity in the Universidad del Nordeste, in Corrientes, Argentina, where she works in the Institute of Botany. She has published a book and over sixty other publications including 55 scientific papers. She has given ten plenary papers at international conferences and contributed to over 50 others of which 19 were international. She is an expert in Rubiaceae and currently works on the American genera of Spermacoceae.

Eliana Calzadilla is a graduate in biology and a botanical illustrator. She has been trained as an illustrator to an advanced level under the guidance of Rosemary Wise in both Bolivia and England. She now works in the Noel Kempff Mercado Museum of Natural History doing research and illustrations for the Bolivian bryophyte project. Her illustrations have been published in the Catálogo de las briofitas de Bolivia, in the Libro Rojo de las Plantas de los Cerrados del Oriente Boliviano and in scientific journals including Candollea and the Kew Bulletin.

Margoth Atahuachi is a biologist and research associate of the Herbario Nacional Forestal Martín Cárdenas of Cochabamba with a masters in Environmental Sciences, who has participated in many projects related to vegetation studies with specialization en Leguminosae. She worked with the Darwin Project on Plant Endemism in the Central Andean valleys of Bolivia and the UNEP/GEF project on the Conservation in situ of wild relatives of cultivated plants. She has carried out taxonomic studies in the genera Prosopis, Arachis, Phaseolus and. Mimosa.