| Abstract Detail
Systematics Section Michelangeli, Fabian A. [1], Almeda, Frank [2], Goldenberg, Renato [3], Judd, Walter S. [4], Tulig, Melissa [5]. The PBI Miconieae project: A complete web-based monograph of the tribe Miconieae (Melastomataceae). With 1800 species in 19 genera, the tribe Miconieae constitutes the largest group of the Melastomataceae. The tribe is strictly neotropical, and it is ecologically important due to their diversity and number of individuals in forest understories, and as an important food source for birds and mammals. The Miconieae also include two of the worst invasive species in the Hawaiin and South Pacific Islands (Koster’s curse [Clidemia hirta] and purple plague [Miconia calvescens]). This collaborative NSF-funded project will comprehensively monograph all species, combining studies in the field, herbarium, and laboratory. All of the information generated by the study will be available online through a dedicated module of NYBG’s botanical database, the Virtual Herbarium, and will include complete descriptions, images, keys for their identification, and distribution maps for each species [http://sweetgum.nybg.org/melastomataceae]. Maps will be automatically generated from databased specimens from all institutions involved in the project, as well as from materials examined from other major herbaria. This database will be instrumental in determining the large back log of specimens of neotropical Melastomataceae held at herbaria throughout the world. The project will also train postdoctoral associates and graduate students in the US and Latin America using the tools of modern monographic treatments and nomenclature. Local scientists in neotropical countries will be trained and be an integral part of the field work. The backbone of this project is an ongoing combined morphological and multi-gene phylogeny that to date has already already sampled over 30% of the species in the tribe. This will result in the first phylogenetically congruent, character-based taxonomy for the tribe. A new classification is imperative as none of the genera with over 20 species are resolved as monophyletic.
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Related Links:
PBI Miconieae website (under construction)
1 - The New York Botanical Garden, Institute of Systematic Botany, 200th St. & Southern Blvd., Bronx, NY, 10458-5126, USA
2 - California Academy of Sciences, Department of Botany, 55 Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California, 94118, USA
3 - Universidade Federal do Parana, Curitiba, Parana, Brazil
4 - University of Florida, Department of Biology, 220 Bartram Hall, P.O. Box 118526, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA
5 - The New York Botanical Garden, Herbarium, 200th St. & Southern Blvd., Bronx, NY, 10458-5126, USA
Keywords:
Melastomataceae
Miconieae
electronic monograph
Planetary Biodiversity Inventory.
Presentation Type: Oral Paper:Papers for BSA Sections
Session: 56
Location: Cottonwood C/Snowbird Center
Date: Wednesday, July 29th, 2009
Time: 11:00 AM
Number: 56012
Abstract ID:525 |
