INVESTIGADORES
ZULOAGA Fernando Omar
artículos
Título:
An integrative and dynamic approach for monographing species-rich plant groups ? Building the global synthesis of the angiosperm order Caryophyllales
Autor/es:
BORSCH, T.; HERNÁNDEZ-LEDESMA, P.; BERENDSOHN, W. G.; FLORES-OLVERA, H.; OCHOTERENA, H.; F.O. ZULOAGA; VON MERING , S.; N. KILIAN
Revista:
PERSPECTIVES IN PLANT ECOLOGY EVOLUTION AND SYSTEMATICS
Editorial:
ELSEVIER GMBH
Referencias:
Año: 2015 vol. 17 p. 284 - 300
ISSN:
1433-8319
Resumen:
tOne of the major goals of systematics is to provide a synthesis of knowledge on the diversity of a groupof organisms, such as flowering plants. Biodiversity conservation and management call for rapid andaccurate global assessments at the species level. At the same time the rapid development of evolutionarybiology with a spectrum of approaches to test species relationships and species limits, has revolutionisedand is still revolutionizing the science of plant systematics including taxonomy. We explore the rel-evant scientific and technological developments with the aim to suggest a conceptual framework foran integrated monographic synthesis which can reach global coverage. Our exemplar group are theCaryophyllales, which are a lineage of worldwide distribution, comprising approx. 5% of flowering plantspecies diversity. The current situation of classification is marked by a transition from pre-phylogenetictreatments to taxonomic treatments increasingly evaluated in an evolutionary context. Structured data(both molecular and morphological), linked to well-documented specimens will be important as funda-mental entities of information that can be subjected to evolutionary analysis. As a result, taxon conceptsare established as hypotheses which then can be used as basis for a classification system in a second step.Global syntheses need to provide information and use a classification system that reflects the currentstate of knowledge. In order to accommodate the constantly improved understanding of the organisms,eventually also resulting in the change of taxon concepts, the treatments need to be dynamic. The work-flow for a global monographic synthesis as outlined here is supported by currently available biodiversityinformatics tools such as the EDIT Platform for Cybertaxonomy. The availability of electronic sources(names, protologues, type images, literature) greatly facilitates the access to information, but as ourcase shows, considerable efforts for data curation and research are still needed. The implementation of aglobal monographic synthesis such as the Caryophyllales requires the involvement of the global scientificcommunity.