Speaker
Description
The pantropically distributed mahogany family (Meliaceae Juss.) is globally valued for its timber and other socio-economically and culturally important products (e.g., in medicine). Despite this recognition, members of the family are threatened by habitat destruction (deforestation). The implementation of long-term conservation measures is hindered by taxonomic uncertainties and inadequate species delimitation. Recently, phylogenomic data yielded a phylogeny incongruent with previous phylogenies based on Sanger sequencing data, possibly due to a complex evolutionary history of Meliaceae characterized by gene duplication events as result of ancient hybridization, autopolyploidization or local gene duplication, hardly captured by phylogenies based on a few loci. This is calling for further investigation into intergeneric relationships and clarifying the taxonomic status of some genera. As part of these investigations, we examine the disjunct sister taxa Cedrela P.Browne (Central and South America) and Toona (Endl.) M.Roem. (Asia). Here, we present first results of our comprehensive phylogenomic study based on Hyb-Seq data, including nuclear single-copy genes data of the Angiosperms353 probe set, aimed at elucidating the evolutionary history of these lineages and detecting putative reticulation events.
| Status Group | Doctoral Researcher |
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