Format: ORAL

Benjamin M. Anderson, Rachel M. Binks, Ryonen Butcher, Margaret Byrne, Andrew D. Crawford, Terry D. Macfarlane, Barbara L. Rye, Kelly A. Shepherd

Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, Western Australia, Perth, Australia

The Southwest Australian Floristic Region contains high angiosperm diversity (7500 species) often occuring in managed landscapes with varying levels of anthropogenic disturbance, which creates a taxonomic and conservation challenge to understand, classify and protect these organisms. Evolutionary patterns in the flora of this historically stable region are diverse, with widespread, genetically-connected lineages contrasting those with restricted or discontinuous ranges and complex genetic structure. While much of the flora has been described, some groups with morphological complexity or subtlety (and putative evolutionary complexity) have frustrated taxonomists and prompted the use of genomic techniques to help unravel that complexity. As part of the Genomics for Australian Plants initiative, we applied reduced representation genomic approaches (ddRAD, sequence capture) to species complexes suspected to contain cryptic taxa of conservation concern. Our goal was to resolve the taxonomy of these complexes. We will present some of our results, along with reflections on the effectiveness and appropriateness of the molecular approaches for our goal. Our findings include unexpected diversity leading to the recognition of more species, as well as the contrasting pattern of unanticipated genetic connectivity leading to fewer species. We also encountered challenges that reflect the complex biology of these systems and highlight the need for fundamental knowledge of e.g. breeding system, ploidy and dispersal patterns when approaching this flora and interpreting genetic data.