ID: 613 / 182

Category: Symposia

Track: Pending

Proposed Symposium Title: METHODS IN INTEGRATIVE TAXONOMY: BRIDGING THE PHYLOGENY TO CLASSIFICATION GAP

Abstract: The advent of molecular phylogenetics since then 1990s has caused a quantum leap in the reconstruction of evolutionary relationships between organisms as the basis to recognize natural taxa at, below, and above species level. However, the implementation of revised formal classifications following newly established phylogenies continues to lag behind. Also, phylogenetic reconstructions based on molecular data alone do not allow the subsequent recognition of newly circumscribed taxa. Integrative taxonomy has been considered as the solution to this so-called "phylogeny-to-classification gap". Since its introduction in 2005, the explicit use of this term in publications has increased exponentially, to over 300 papers per year across all groups of organisms. However, integrative taxonomy is mostly used in zoology and rarely in botany and mycology: of the ten leading journals in terms of publications explicitly using this term, five are zoological and five are of a general nature, totaling 760 out of 1940 papers on this subject since 2005. The leading botanical journals are Botanical Journal Of The Linnean Society, Phytotaxa, and Phytokeys, together with only 35 papers. Coincidently, the three leading journals overall, Zootaxa, Zookeys, and Zoological Journal Of The Linnean Society, representing the topical complements of the same publishers, amass 458 papers, an order of magnitude more. Also, the term "integrative taxonomy" is frequently used without a coherent rationale and disregarding its true meaning. In this symposium, we attempt at developing a clear definition of the term "integrative taxonomy" and what it should entail, namely the combined analysis of various lines of evidence, at least one molecular and the other non-molecular, by means of quantitative techniques. The symposium will present exemplar studies in different organismic groups encompassing the diverse approaches useful to achieve this goal, including multivariate techniques, phylogenomics combined with phenetics, or phenotype-based phylogenetic binning.

Speaker 1: Anais Gibert, Laboratoire Génome et Développement des Plantes (LGDP), UMR5096, Université de Perpignan Via Domitia—CNRS, F-66860 Perpignan, France [anais.gibert@gmail.com] Extracting Quantitative Information from Images Taken in the Wild: A Case Study of Two Vicariants of the Ophrys aveyronensis Species Complex

Speaker 2: Karina Wilk, W. Szafer Institute of Botany, Polish Academy of Sciences [k.wilk@botany.pl] Quantitative integrative taxonomy informs species delimitation in Teloschistaceae (lichenized Ascomycota): the genus Wetmoreana as a case study

Speaker 3: [to be determined]

Topics (Up to three): Systematics

Topic 2: Phylogenetics and Phylogenomics

Topic 3: Bioinformatics

Justification: Integrative taxonomy is increasingly used in taxonomic studies, but frequently without a clear idea what it should entail. This symposium presents the different methodologies used in integrative taxonomy, to obtain a clear definition and to streamline and accelerate taxonomic research in botany and mycology. It brings together experts from different taxonomic groups, including flowering plants, pteridophytes, bryophytes, and lichens, as well as an array of quantitative approaches. As such, the proposed symposium relates to eight of the 31 proposed topics: Bioinformatics; Biogeography / Phylogeography; Bryology; Education and Outreach; Mycology and Lichenology; Phylogenetics and Phylogenomics; Pteridology; Systematics and taxonomy.