Research Development of Food Plant Ethnobotany—Bibliometric and Mapping Knowledge Domains Analysis Based on Web of Science

This study, with the purpose of summarizing the large aggregation of Food Plant Ethnobotany studies to find research history, current status and probable future trend, is based on the following questions: (1) What have been studied on traditional food plants previously? (2) What are studying on traditional food plants at present, and how? (3) What will be studied on traditional food plants in future? To conduct this survey, we searched for papers in Web of Science databases, using combinations of keywords, and the survey was limited to the studies published before June 30th, 2014. CITESPACE software was used to analyze the cited references of these papers. Nine hundreds and fifty four papers published from 1991 to 2014 were found. Analyzing these 954 papers and their cited references, we discovered that documentation of traditional food plants uses is the main study field in past and at present. Quantitative methods, dissemination of traditional knowledge, proper management of local plants resources, and nutritional and pharmaceutical components of food plants will be studied more in future. This paper will help to get a clue of Food Plant Ethnobotany.