Wild and pollinators at risk of spatial mismatch in a changing climate.

Climate change is expected to drive substantial shifts in species' geographic ranges. Species-specific responses of interacting species, such as plants and their pollinators, may lead to a spatial mismatch in their future distributions, disrupting these interspecific interactions. The crop wild relatives (CWRs) of the tropical cash crop vanilla hold valuable genetic resources for use in crop breeding, but their persistence is dependent on the presence of their pollinators, and at risk due to several anthropogenic pressures including climate change.

Phylogenomic conflict analyses of plastid and mitochondrial genomes of Impatiens (Balsaminaceae) reveal its complex evolutionary history.

Impatiens is among the most diverse angiosperm genera, comprising more than 1000 species. The phylogenetic relationship among sections of Impatiens remains unclear. Plastomes and mitogenomes are useful for resolving problematic relationships in plant phylogenetics; however, conflicts between the organellar genomes have been reported.

A Molecular Survey of the Occurrence of Coffee Berry Disease Resistant Coffee Cultivars Near the Wild Gene Pool of Arabica Coffee in Its Region of Origin in Southwest Ethiopia.

Cultivation of crops close to their wild relatives may jeopardise the integrity of wild genetic resources. Detecting cultivars among wild plants is necessary to characterise crop-wild gene flow, but can be challenging if cultivars and wild plants are phenotypically highly similar. Genomics tools can be used instead, but the selection of diagnostic loci for cultivar identification can be difficult if the wild and cultivated genepools are closely related.

A splendid banana enigma: Phylogenomic assessment of Vietnamese Musa splendida and Musa viridis populations shows that they are conspecific.

Species delimitation is essential to study and conserve biological diversity. It is traditionally based on morphological trait variation observed in one or a few specimens. Nevertheless, such assessments may not sufficiently take intraspecific trait variation into account, misidentifying morphotypes as separate species.

Species delimitation and phylogenomics of economically important African Pterocarpus trees, with an implication for the development of DNA-based species identification tools.

Reliable species delimitation is fundamental for establishing clear and equitable guidelines on the sustainable harvest of economically important organisms. Pterocarpus (Fabaceae) is a pantropical tree genus including several highly valuable timber-producing species, that face significant threats from intensive logging. However, a lack of taxonomic clarity has hindered the advance of logging regulations and has led to the inclusion of all African Pterocarpus populations under CITES regulations (CoP19).

Leaf functional trait evolution and its putative climatic drivers in African Coffea species.

Background And Aims: Leaf traits are known to be strong predictors of plant performance and can be expected to (co)vary along environmental gradients. We investigated the variation, integration, environmental relationships and evolutionary history of leaf functional traits in the genus Coffea, typically a rainforest understorey shrub, across Africa. A better understanding of the adaptive processes involved in leaf trait evolution can inform the use and conservation of coffee genetic resources in a changing climate.

Radiating diversification and niche conservatism jointly shape the inverse latitudinal diversity gradient of Potentilla L. (Rosaceae).

Background: The latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG), characterized by an increase in species richness from the poles to the equator, is one of the most pervasive biological patterns. However, inverse LDGs, in which species richness peaks in extratropical regions, are also found in some lineages and their causes remain unclear. Here, we test the roles of evolutionary time, diversification rates, and niche conservatism in explaining the inverse LDG of Potentilla (ca.

Historical tree phenology data reveal the seasonal rhythms of the Congo Basin rainforest.

Tropical forest phenology directly affects regional carbon cycles, but the relation between species-specific and whole-canopy phenology remains largely uncharacterized. We present a unique analysis of historical tropical tree phenology collected in the central Congo Basin, before large-scale impacts of human-induced climate change. Ground-based long-term (1937-1956) phenological observations of 140 tropical tree species are recovered, species-specific phenological patterns analyzed and related to historical meteorological records, and scaled to characterize stand-level canopy dynamics.

Phylogenomic conflict analyses of the plastid and mitochondrial genomes via deep genome skimming highlight their independent evolutionary histories: A case study in the cinquefoil genus Potentilla sensu lato (Potentilleae, Rosaceae).

Phylogenomic conflicts are widespread among genomic data, with most previous studies primarily focusing on nuclear datasets instead of organellar genomes. In this study, we investigate phylogenetic conflict analyses within and between plastid and mitochondrial genomes using Potentilla as a case study. We generated three plastid datasets (coding, noncoding, and all-region) and one mitochondrial dataset (coding regions) to infer phylogenies based on concatenated and multispecies coalescent (MSC) methods.

Global Brassicaceae phylogeny based on filtering of 1,000-gene dataset.

The mustard family (Brassicaceae) is a scientifically and economically important family, containing the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana and numerous crop species that feed billions worldwide. Despite its relevance, most phylogenetic trees of the family are incompletely sampled and often contain poorly supported branches. Here, we present the most complete Brassicaceae genus-level family phylogenies to date (Brassicaceae Tree of Life or BrassiToL) based on nuclear (1,081 genes, 319 of the 349 genera; 57 of the 58 tribes) and plastome (60 genes, 265 genera; all tribes) data.

Phylogenomics and historical biogeography of Hydrangeeae (Hydrangeaceae) elucidate the effects of geologic and climatic dynamics on diversification.

Demonstrating the process of transregional biogeography and mechanisms underlying evolutionary radiations is crucial to understanding biological evolution. Here, we use Hydrangeeae (Hydrangeaceae), a tribe with a unique disjunct distribution and complex trait variations, using a solid phylogenetic framework, to investigate how geographical and climatic factors interact with functional traits to trigger plant evolutionary radiations. We constructed the first highly supported and dated phylogenetic framework using 79 protein-coding genes obtained from 81 plastomes, representing 63 species and all major clades, and found that most extant species originated from asynchronous diversification of two lineages undergoing repeated expansion and retraction, at middle and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere between East Asia and North America, during the Eocene to Pleistocene (driven by geologic and climatic dynamics).

Multi-loci phylogeny and morphological evidence support the recognition of Januaria (Spermacoceae, Rubiaceae), a new monospecific genus endemic to the North of Minas Gerais (Brazil).

Januaria is described as a new monospecific genus of Rubiaceae, based on material from Januária, northern Minas Gerais, Brazil. The new taxon is endemic to Brazil, occurring in a vegetation type that is known locally as "carrasco", in the southern limit of the Caatinga biome. Morphological (including palynological and SEM analyses) and molecular phylogenetic analyses based on nuclear (ETS, ITS) and plastid (atpB-rbcL, peth, rps16, trnL-trnF) sequence data were performed in the Spermacoce clade (tribe Spermacoceae).

Evolution and Classification of Musaceae Based on Male Floral Morphology.

Classification of the banana family (Musaceae) into three genera, , and , and infrageneric ranking are still ambiguous. Within the genus , five formerly separated sections were recently merged into sections and based on seed morphology, molecular data and chromosome numbers. Nevertheless, other key morphological characters of the genera, sections, and species have not been clearly defined.

Genetic characterization of a group of commercial African timber species: From genomics to barcoding.

In the last decades, illegal logging has posed a serious threat for the integrity of forest ecosystems and for biodiversity conservation in tropical Africa. Although international treaties and regulatory plans have been implemented to reduce illegal logging, much of the total timber volume is harvested and traded illegally from tropical African forest regions. As a result, the development and the application of analytical tools to enhance the traceability and the identification of wood and related products is critical to enforce international regulations.

Phylogeography and conservation gaps of Colla genetic diversity revealed by microsatellite markers.

Unlabelled: Collection and storage of crop wild relative (CWR) germplasm is crucial for preserving species genetic diversity and crop improvement. Nevertheless, much of the genetic variation of CWRs is absent in ex situ collections and detailed passport data are often lacking. Here, we focussed on one of the two main progenitor species of many banana cultivars.

Ecological and genomic vulnerability to climate change across native populations of Robusta coffee (Coffea canephora).

The assessment of population vulnerability under climate change is crucial for planning conservation as well as for ensuring food security. Coffea canephora is, in its native habitat, an understorey tree that is mainly distributed in the lowland rainforests of tropical Africa. Also known as Robusta, its commercial value constitutes a significant revenue for many human populations in tropical countries.

Drying banana seeds for conservation.

The ability of seeds to withstand drying is fundamental to seed conservation but drying responses are not well known for most wild species including crop wild relatives. We look at drying responses of seeds of and , the two primary wild relatives of bananas and plantains, using the following four experimental approaches: (i) We equilibrated seeds to a range of relative humidity (RH) levels using non-saturated lithium chloride solutions and subsequently measured moisture content (MC) and viability. At each humidity level we tested viability using embryo rescue (ER), tetrazolium chloride staining and germination in an incubator.

Sorting out the plants responsible for a contamination with pyrrolizidine alkaloids in spice seeds by means of LC-MS/MS and DNA barcoding: Proof of principle with cumin and anise spice seeds.

High value commodities such as spices suffer from occasional contaminations of both chemical and biological origin. Consequently, quality control and safety monitoring has become a pressing issue for the spice industry. Two recent independent studies showed that at least one third of the analyzed cumin and green anise spice seeds samples surpassed the by the European Union recently established threshold value for toxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs) and their corresponding N-oxides (PANOs).

Genetic composition and diversity of Arabica coffee in the crop's centre of origin and its impact on four major fungal diseases.

Conventional wisdom states that genetic variation reduces disease levels in plant populations. Nevertheless, crop species have been subject to a gradual loss of genetic variation through selection for specific traits during breeding, thereby increasing their vulnerability to biotic stresses such as pathogens. We explored how genetic variation in Arabica coffee sites in southwestern Ethiopia was related to the incidence of four major fungal diseases.

Diversity of associated banana wilt in northern Viet Nam.

is one of the most important fungal genera of plant pathogens that affect the cultivation of a wide range of crops. Agricultural losses caused by Fusariumoxysporumf.sp.

Corrigendum to: Drying banana seeds for conservation.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1093/conphys/coab099.].

Pre- and postzygotic mechanisms preventing hybridization in co-occurring species of the complex.

In the species-rich genus , few natural hybrids are known, even though closely related species often occur sympatrically. In this study, we aim to bridge the gap between micro- and macro-evolution to disentangle pre- and postzygotic mechanisms that may prevent hybridization in the complex from Central Africa. We analyzed habitat types, species distribution, pollination syndromes, pollinator dependency, genome sizes, and chromosome numbers of seven out of the ten species of the complex as well as of one natural hybrid and reconstructed the ancestral chromosome numbers of the complex.