Plant biodiversity in Pyrenean homegardens (Catalonia, Iberian peninsula): current state of a mountain agroecosystem

Fifty-one homegardens from the high river Ter valley and neighbouring districts (Pyrenees, Iberian peninsula) have been studied from plant biodiversity (including agrobiodiversity) and ethnobotanical points of view. A catalogue of the plants growing in the gardens has been built and several features from the homegardens and their owners have also been compiled and analyzed in order to characterize this agroecosystem which is strongly threatened in the industrialized countries. The area of the gardens ranged from 15 to 3,000 m2 (average 321 m2) and the total amount of taxa (including varieties, cultivars and wild plants growing in the garden) inventoried in all the homegardens studied is 384 (353 without cultivars), a very high figure when compared with previous reports from different areas in the world.