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... ity of Chicago Press and Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Current Anthropology. Recent work reviewed here offers new insights into the evolution of manioc (Manihot esculenta) under domestication and contributes to current scientific efforts aimed at documenting forms of environmental management, local knowledge systems, and cultural practices that enhance genetic diversity. This work shows that human and natural selection jointly shape manioc diversity through (1) the overall cultivation system, which is highly adapted to environmental pressures; (2) the knowledge, categorization, and valorization of phenotypically expressed varietal differences; and (3) the incorporation, in this clonally propagated crop, of sexually reproduced plants, which encourages intravarietal diversity and occasionally leads to the creation of new varieties, that is, new categories that are phenotypically distinct and receive a new name before being multiplied. We conclude that genetic research, when placed in an interdisciplinary context, generates new questions for anthropologists working with manioc cultivators and with tropical forest horticulturalists whose subsistence depends on other clonally propagated crops. This report focuses on an interdisciplinary research program on manioc carried out over the past 10 years 1 that looked at agrobiodiversity and its relationship with genetic diversity from the perspective of a single plant, manioc (also known as cassava, yuca, and mandioca). 2 A domesticated species belonging to the genus Manihot in the family Euphorbiaceae, with hundreds of different landraces, manioc (Manihot esculenta Crantz) has been described by botanists (Rogers 1965; Rogers and Appan 1973) and agronomists (Cock 1985) . Its cultivation, processing, and use have long fascinated archaeologists and anthropologists and, before them, the Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Dutch travelers to the Americas. 3 Initially domesticated in South America 8000-10,000 years ago (Olsen and Schaal 1999; Allem 2002) , manioc was introduced into West Africa more than 400 years ago, where it often supplanted yam (Dioscorea spp.) cultivation (Jones