Molecular differentiation of the Murraya paniculata Complex (Rutaceae: Aurantioideae: Aurantieae).

Background: Orange jasmine has a complex nomenclatural history and is now known as Murraya paniculata (L.) Jack. Our interest in this common ornamental stemmed from the need to resolve its identity and the identities of closely related taxa as hosts of the pathogen 'Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus' and its vector Diaphorina citri.

The phylogeny and biogeography of Hakea (Proteaceae) reveals the role of biome shifts in a continental plant radiation.

The frequency of evolutionary biome shifts during diversification has important implications for our ability to explain geographic patterns of plant diversity. Recent studies present several examples of biome shifts, but whether frequencies of biome shifts closely reflect geographic proximity or environmental similarity of biomes remains poorly known. We explore this question by using phylogenomic methods to estimate the phylogeny of Hakea, a diverse Australian genus occupying a wide range of biomes.

Characterization of CYCLOIDEA-like genes in Proteaceae, a basal eudicot family with multiple shifts in floral symmetry.

Background And Aims: The basal eudicot family Proteaceae (approx. 1700 species) shows considerable variation in floral symmetry but has received little attention in studies of evolutionary development at the genetic level. A framework for understanding the shifts in floral symmetry in Proteaceae is provided by reconstructing ancestral states on an upated phylogeny of the family, and homologues of CYCLOIDEA (CYC), a key gene for the control of floral symmetry in both monocots and eudicots, are characterized.

Paraphyly changes understanding of timing and tempo of diversification in subtribe Hakeinae (Proteaceae), a giant Australian plant radiation.

Premise Of The Study: Subtribe Hakeinae (526 spp.) represents a large Australian plant radiation central to our understanding of that flora's evolution and ecology. It contains Grevillea-the third largest plant genus in Australia and a group inferred to have among the highest diversification rates in the angiosperms.

Paleo-Antarctic rainforest into the modern Old World tropics: the rich past and threatened future of the "southern wet forest survivors".

Unlabelled: •

Premise Of Study: Have Gondwanan rainforest floral associations survived? Where do they occur today? Have they survived continuously in particular locations? How significant is their living floristic signal? We revisit these classic questions in light of significant recent increases in relevant paleobotanical data.•

Methods: We traced the extinction and persistence of lineages and associations through the past across four now separated regions-Australia, New Zealand, Patagonia, and Antarctica-using fossil occurrence data from 63 well-dated Gondwanan rainforest sites and 396 constituent taxa. Fossil sites were allocated to four age groups: Cretaceous, Paleocene-Eocene, Neogene plus Oligocene, and Pleistocene.

Maintenance of strong morphological differentiation despite ongoing natural hybridization between sympatric species of Lomatia (Proteaceae).

Background And Aims: When species cohesion is maintained despite ongoing natural hybridization, many questions are raised about the evolutionary processes operating in the species complex. This study examined the extensive natural hybridization between the Australian native shrubs Lomatia myricoides and L. silaifolia (Proteaceae).

What has molecular systematics contributed to our knowledge of the plant family Proteaceae?

Molecular systematics has revolutionized our understanding of the evolution of the Proteaceae. Phylogenetic relationships have been reconstructed down to generic level and below from alignments of chloroplast and nuclear DNA sequences. These trees have enabled the monophyly of all subfamilies, tribes, and subtribes to be rigorously tested and the construction of a new classification of the family at these ranks.

Climate drives vein anatomy in Proteaceae.

Premise Of Study: The mechanisms by which plants tolerate water deficit are only just becoming clear. One key factor in drought tolerance is the ability to maintain the capacity to conduct water through the leaves in conditions of water stress. Recent work has shown that a simple feature of the leaf xylem cells, the cube of the thickness of cell walls divided by the lumen width (t/b)(3), is strongly correlated with this ability.

A rapid multi-disciplinary biodiversity assessment of the Kamdebooberge (Sneeuberg, Eastern Cape, South Africa): implications for conservation.

Unlabelled: Botanical work since 2008 on the Sleeping Giant section of the Kamdebooberge (Sneeuberg mountain complex, Eastern Cape, South Africa) has indicated that these mountains may be of significant conservation value. Accordingly, a precursory, rapid multi-disciplinary biodiversity assessment was undertaken in January 2011, focusing on plants, tetrapod vertebrates and leafhoppers. The botanical results confirm the Kamdebooberge as being of high botanical conservation value, hosting three strict endemics, healthy populations of five other Sneeuberg endemics, and fynbos communities comprising species not found elsewhere in the Sneeuberg.

The impact of multiple biogeographic barriers and hybridization on species-level differentiation.

Premise Of The Study: The glacial cycles of the Quaternary did not impact Australia in the same way as Europe and North America. Here we investigate the history of population isolation, species differentiation, and hybridization in the southeastern Australian landscape, using five species of Lomatia (Proteaceae). We use a chloroplast DNA phylogeography to assess chloroplast haplotype (chlorotype) sharing among these species and whether species with shared distributions have been affected by shared biogeographic barriers.

First instalment in resolution of the Banksia spinulosa complex (Proteaceae): B. neoanglica, a new species supported by phenetic analysis, ecology and geography.

Taxa in the Banksia spinulosa Sm. complex (Proteaceae) have populations with sympatric, parapatric and allopatric distributions and unclear or disputed boundaries. Our hypothesis is that under biological, phenetic and diagnosable species concepts that each of the currently named taxa within the Banksia spinulosa complex is a separate species.

Genetic structure and bio-climatic modeling support allopatric over parapatric speciation along a latitudinal gradient.

Background: Four of the five species of Telopea (Proteaceae) are distributed in a latitudinal replacement pattern on the south-eastern Australian mainland. In similar circumstances, a simple allopatric speciation model that identifies the origins of genetic isolation within temporal geographic separation is considered as the default model. However, secondary contact between differentiated lineages can result in similar distributional patterns to those arising from a process of parapatric speciation (where gene flow between lineages remains uninterrupted during differentiation).

Time-calibrated phylogeny of the woody Australian genus Hakea (Proteaceae) supports multiple origins of insect-pollination among bird-pollinated ancestors.

Premise Of The Study: A past study based on morphological data alone showed that the means by which plants of the Australian genus Hakea reduce florivory is related to the evolution of bird pollination. For example, bird pollination was shown to have arisen only in insect-pollinated lineages that already produced greater amounts of floral cyanide, a feature that reduces florivory. We examine a central conclusion of that study, and a common assumption in the literature, that bird pollination arose in insect-pollinated lineages, rather than the reverse.

The impact of distance and a shifting temperature gradient on genetic connectivity across a heterogeneous landscape.

Background: Inter-population distance and differences in breeding times are barriers to reproduction that can contribute to genotypic differentiation between populations. Temporal changes in environmental conditions and local selective processes can further contribute to the establishment of reproductive barriers. Telopea speciosissima (Proteaceae) is an excellent subject for studying the effect of geographic, edaphic and phenological heterogeneity on genotypic differentiation because previous studies show that these factors are correlated with morphological variation.

Phylogenetic biome conservatism on a global scale.

How and why organisms are distributed as they are has long intrigued evolutionary biologists. The tendency for species to retain their ancestral ecology has been demonstrated in distributions on local and regional scales, but the extent of ecological conservatism over tens of millions of years and across continents has not been assessed. Here we show that biome stasis at speciation has outweighed biome shifts by a ratio of more than 25:1, by inferring ancestral biomes for an ecologically diverse sample of more than 11,000 plant species from around the Southern Hemisphere.

Using fossils and molecular data to reveal the origins of the Cape proteas (subfamily Proteoideae).

The angiosperm family Proteaceae is a distinct component of the Cape Floristic Region biodiversity hotspot with 330 endemic species. Phylogenetic analyses of subfamily Proteoideae using sequence data from one nuclear and six plastid loci show that most of this diversity is contained in two distinct Cape floral clades. Molecular dating analyses, using Bayesian and penalized likelihood methods and four phylogenetically supported fossil age constraints, reveal contrasting histories for these two clades.

Contrasted patterns of hyperdiversification in Mediterranean hotspots.

Dating the Tree of Life has now become central to relating patterns of biodiversity to key processes in Earth history such as plate tectonics and climate change. Regions with a Mediterranean climate have long been noted for their exceptional species richness and high endemism. How and when these biota assembled can only be answered with a good understanding of the sequence of divergence times for each of their components.

A smaller Macadamia from a more vagile tribe: inference of phylogenetic relationships, divergence times, and diaspore evolution in Macadamia and relatives (tribe Macadamieae; Proteaceae).

Tribe Macadamieae (91 spp., 16 genera; Proteaceae) is widespread across the southern hemisphere on all major fragments of Gondwana except New Zealand and India. Macadamia is cultivated outside its natural range as a "nut" crop (notably in Hawaii, where it is the principal orchard crop).

The evolutionary relations of sunken, covered, and encrypted stomata to dry habitats in Proteaceae.

Sunken, covered, and encrypted stomata have been anecdotally linked with dry climates and reduced transpiration and therefore have been used to infer dry palaeoclimates from fossils. This study assesses the evolutionary and ecological associations of such stomatal protection in a model system-the diverse southern hemisphere family Proteaceae. Analyses were based on the morphology of over 1400 Australian, South African, New Caledonian, New Zealand, and South American species, anatomy of over 300 of these species, and bioclimatic data from all 1109 Australian species.

Solar radiation as a factor in the evolution of scleromorphic leaf anatomy in Proteaceae.

Species of the major Southern Hemisphere family, Proteaceae, have many scleromorphic anatomical structures in their leaves. Many of these structures (very thick cuticles and five anatomically distinct structures beneath the epidermis) are associated with the leaf surface exposed to direct light. These structures increase the path through which solar radiation must pass before reaching the mesophyll.

A phylogenetic study of pollinator conservatism among sexually deceptive orchids.

Orchids of the genus Chiloglottis are pollinated through the sexual deception of male wasps mainly from the genus Neozeleboria (Tiphiidae: Thynninae). The orchids mimic both the appearance and sex pheromones of wingless female thynnines but provide no reward to the deceived males. Despite the asymmetry of this interaction, strong pollinator specificity is typical.