Rowan J Schley

Abstract Telling species apart using DNA sequence data plays a key role in understanding, monitoring, and managing biodiversity. However, plant species discrimination is often difficult due to the complex nature of plant species boundaries. To inform future strategies for DNA-based identification of plants using the nuclear genome and to gain fundamental insights into the genomic nature of differences between plant species, we conducted a large-scale analysis mining data from 151 studies.

Introduction Polyploidy, whole-genome duplication that results in the presence of more than two sets of chromosomes in an organism, is a central force in plant evolution. All angiosperm species have experienced at least one round of historical polyploidy, while c. 35% of angiosperm species are more recent polyploids based on their chromosome counts (Wood et al., 2009).

Abstract Evolutionary radiations underlie much of the species diversity of life on Earth, particularly within the world's most species-rich tree flora - that of the Amazon rainforest. Hybridisation occurs in many radiations, with effects ranging from homogenisation of species to generation of genetic and phenotypic novelty that fuels speciation, but the influence of hybridisation on Amazonian tree radiations has been little studied.