Dr James Ratter is a retired member of the staff of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) and now holds the position of Research Associate. He has served 50 years at RBGE and was previously leader of the institute's Tropical Section. Since 1967 his principal research interest has been the cerrado biome and its transition zone with the Amazonian forest. In 1976-77 he was a Visiting Professor of the University of Brasília appointed as one of the founders of its Ecology Department, and has maintained his connexion with the University ever since. In total he has made more than 50 research and teaching visits to Brazil.

Dr Sam Bridgewater was a member of the tropical group of RBGE and beginning in 1991 worked on extensive field surveys of the UK/Brazilian joint project Conservation and Management of the Biodiversity of the Brazilian Cerrado Biome (CMBBC), and later played a major role in writing it up. He was later employed by the Natural History Museum, London, as director of its field station in Belize. At present he is engaged in environmental projects in Scotland, but maintains his interest and expertise in the cerrado. He wrote much of the content of this website whilst funded by the Sibbald Trust, whose support is gratefully acknowledged.

Dr J. Felipe Ribeiro is a senior scientist of the large Brazilian Research Organisation Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisas Agropecúarias (Brazilian Enterprise for Agriculture and Stock-Raising). He was originally sent by EMBRAPA in 1976 to train with James Ratter during the period of the establishment of the University of Brasília Ecology Department and they have worked together ever since. He has spent most of his service at the EMBRAPA research station that specialises in cerrado research (CPAC) but for the last four years has been seconded to headquarters to lead and/or advise negotiations on cerrado conservation. During his career he has written widely on major aspects of cerrado vegetation.

Sr Joaquim Fonsêca Filho is now a retired ‘técnico’ driver/collector with an immense knowledge of the flora of Central Brazil. He worked for the University of Brasília (from where he was seconded to the Anglo-Brazilian Xavantina-Cachimbo Expedition (1967-69)), and then the Ecology Laboratory and later transferred to EMBRAPA/CPAC – and James Ratter worked with him for over 34 years. Joaquim’s skill in recognising plants, driving over very poor dirt roads (about 50,000km during the CMBBC project alone), general ‘know-how’ in the sertão (backwoods), and absolute reliability were vital for fieldwork.

Miriam Rodrigues da Silva is an MSc botanist at EMBRAPA/CPAC who has carried out a meticulous check of the full CMBBC data-base and her dedicated and patient work has made many improvements to it.

Dr William Milliken commenced his botanical studies in Brazil with the Maracá Rainforest project in Roraima in 1987-88 where he spent a year studying forests ad the areas of Amazonian savanna. He is now Head of the Tropical America Regional Team at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Lately he has been working on a cerrado project in the Serra de Cipó, Minas Gerais, Brazil, as well as other studies in southern Amazonia. His main contribution to our present project has been to design the database of cerrado floristic inventories that is delivered via the website.

Dr Arnildo Pott began working on cerrado and other vegetation of the Brazilian Pantanal when he took up a post at the EMBRAPA Pantanal station at Corumbá, Mato Grosso do Sul, and since then he and his wife, Vali, have dedicated their lives to building a unique knowledge of the flora of the Pantanal – Arnildo specialising in terrestrial, and Vali in aquatic vegetation. Our team worked a number of times with Arnildo and Vali in Mato Grosso do Sul, particularly when Arnildo acted as our guide and mentor for the surveys of the CMBBC project there. Following this, the Potts contuined their collaboration in a sabbatical year at RBGE.

Dr Ary T. Oliveira-Filho was a young professor of the Federal University of Mato Grosso, Cuiabá, when he first met James Ratter in a course given by the latter for the Organisation of American States in Poconé, Mato Grosso. Since then Ary has worked at the Federal Universities of Lavras and Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais and has produced many influential publications, as well as having spent a number of study leaves and sabbatical years at RBGE. His great contribution to this website has been checking the correctness of all taxonomic names in our database.

Dr Giselda Durigan is a senior researcher at the Floresta Estadual de Assis station run by the State of São Paulo government. She has carried out a great deal of excellent research on regeneration of cerradão vegetation, comparison of different cerrado areas, and most recently invasion of cerrado areas by Pinus elliotii in São Paulo State. She has participated in collaborative research during a partial sabbatical year and other study visits to RBGE, some of which resulted in joint publications – results of which are communicated in the discussion section of the paper that can be downloaded from this website.

Dr Toby Pennington is Head of the Tropical Diversity Section at RBGE and has carried out research in the cerrado and particularly in his specialisation, seasonally dry tropical forest found on calcareous soils throughout the Neotropics. He helped in co-ordinating the production of this website, developed some of its content, and ran the multivariate analyses in the paper that can be downloaded from this website.

Dr Martin Pullan leads bioinformatics research at RBGE. He designed this website.