ID: 613 / 49

Category: Symposia

Track: Pending

Proposed Symposium Title: GEOPHYTIC MONOCOTS: TAXONOMY AND THE EVOLUTION OF SUCCULENCE

Abstract: Monocots account for some 25% of the total flowering plants. Many of these monocots are geophytic in nature as the perennating organs are underground structures such as a bulb, corm, tuber and/or rhizome. These plants are well-known ornamentals and have high reputation in medical field owing to the presence of many bioactive metabolites. Geophytic monocots form poor specimens due to their succulent nature and delicate flowers and hence find limited coverage in Herbaria. Nevertheless, the evolution of succulence in this group is yet to be investigated. Geophytic monocots exhibit high polymorphism due to the accumulation of variations and the continuity of these variations through vegetative propagation. Moreover, frequent interspecific hybridization leads to continuous variation making species delimitation problematic. In the absence of diagnostic morphological features, chromosomal information (obtained from cellular, molecular and flow cytogenetics) and DNA data (phylogeny) can prove very useful for identifying and delimiting geophytic monocots. Most of the geophytic monocots have amenable chromosome size and hence cytogenetical data along with DNA information would provide unequivocal evidences to understand evolutionary processes (speciation and hybridization) in this group. Therefore, this symposium aims at bringing together scientists across the globe to deliberate on taxonomy and understanding the causes underlying the evolution of succulence in geophytic monocots.

Speaker 1: Name: Prof. Syd Ramdhani Institutional affiliation: School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville Campus, Private Bag X54001, Durban 4000, South Africa Email: Ramdhani@ukzn.ac.za Tentative Talk Title: The evolution of succulence in geophytic monocot lineages

Speaker 2: Speaker 2 Name: Prof. S. R. Yadav Institutional affiliation: Department of Botany, Shivaji University, Kolhapur 416004, Maharashtra, India Email: sryadavdu@gmail.com Tentative Talk Title: Delimiting species boundaries in Indian Pancratium (Amaryllidaceae): A cytotaxonomic approach

Speaker 3: Name: Dr. Maxim Nuraliev Institutional affiliation: Department of Higher Plants, Biological Faculty, M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, 1, 12, Leninskie Gory, 119234 Moscow, Russia & Joint Russian-Vietnamese Tropical Scientific and Technological Center, Nguyen Van Huyen str., Cau Giay, Hanoi, Vietnam. Email: max.nuraliev@gmail.com Tentative Talk Title: Diversity and phylogenetics of the rapidly growing Asian genus Peliosanthes (Asparagaceae)

Topics (Up to three): Systematics

Topic 2: Phylogenetics and Phylogenomics

Topic 3: Biogeography / Phylogeography

Justification: Despite the ecological and evolutionary significance of geophytic habit, geophytic monocots are an understudied plant group. Coddy et al. (2019) and Tribble et al. (2021) highlighted this issue and have advocated for increasing resources for geophyte research to improve our understanding of the factors controlling, promoting, and maintaining geophyte diversity. Cytogenetical and molecular phylogeny data offer great scope in understanding the taxonomy and evolution of geophytic monocots and can pave for their sustainable utilisation. The symposium brings together expertise from Asia and Africa where considerable diversity of geophytic monocots is found.