Format: ORAL

Nadja Korotkova1 Thomas Borsch1

Botanischer Garten Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany

The order Caryophyllales constitutes a major clade of the angiosperms, encompassing about 13.500 species. Whereas the circumscription of families has been stable since a number of years, the circumscription of genera shows considerable turnover as the number of species included into phylogenetic analyses raises. From 749 genera accepted in 2015, the current state of knowledge justifies the monophyletic circumscription of 779 genera. The examples of the three speciose families Cactaceae, and in particular Caryophyllaceae and Plumbaginaceae show that large (100 species) and widespread genera lack consistent taxonomic treatments. We have therefore developed a work-flow that aims at integrating the available knowledge: The basis forms a name source compiled from available electronic sources (WFO core data, WCVP, IPNI) with a preliminary assessment of the status as accepted name and synonym. As next steps protologue and type information is added as completely as possible, and published sources for taxon concepts matching the accepted species are assigned as secundum references with priority being given to phylogeny-based synopses or monographs. Further support to evaluate taxon concepts at species level comes from phylogenetic analyses which we are also directly implementing or facilitating within the TEN. The EDIT Platform is used to manage the taxonomic backbone (taxon concepts, names, references, associated data) what allows for an easy change of taxon circumscriptions once new knowledge become available and the generation of publication ready outputs of taxonomic treatments. The results show that the number of accepted species can differ considerably from previous estimates and hitherto available species lists. All together more than 50 botanists from 30 countries are so far involved in the Caryophyllales TEN.