Welcome

Welcome to the New Zealand Plant Radiation Network (NZPRN) wiki. Here you will find information on research being conducted on species radiation in the New Zealand flora.

The NZPRN is open to everyone interested in plant evolutionary biology. Please contact one of the people of the organising committee if you would like to join. New NZPRN members will automatically receive a login so that they can contribute to the wiki. If you are an existing member of the NZPRN you can register for a wiki login here.

Also check out our NZPRN facebook group!

If you have any comments or questions about the wiki, please do not hesitate to e-mail nzprn.webmaster@anatomy.otago.ac.nz.

What is species radiation?

What are plant species radiations, and why are they important? Understanding how global plant biodiversity arose and is maintained requires an understanding of plant species radiation - a process of diversification that produces morphologically and ecologically distinct, but genetically similar, species from a single founding population. Species radiations are a feature of many world floras including that of New Zealand. Developing our understanding of species radiation will help us to understand the nature, evolutionary potential and adaptability of our flora to environmental change.

Current News

December 2012

Job opportunities at CSIRO: RESEARCH SCIENTISTS – 4 X POSITIONS

Location: Canberra, Australia
Salary: $89K-$120K (based on qualifications and experience) plus up to 15.4% superannuation
Tenure: Indefinite
Pre-requisite: PhD and extensive postdoctoral experience in a relevant field.

ACT12/03557 - Invertebrate - Molecular Systematics

ACT12/03558 - Vertebrate - Systematics and Collections

ACT12/04633 - Plant Molecular Systematics and Evolutionary Genomics (x2)

Applications close: 11.30pm (EST) on 30 January 2013. For more information, see the flyer.

May 2012

• Check out the symposia for the 2013 Southern Connections Conference, to be held at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, 21-25 Janurary 2013. Especially relevant is Symposium #6: Southern radiations: processes driving diversification:

"The southern hemisphere supports some of the most spectacular plant and animal radiations globally. On many land masses these contribute disproportionately to regional biodiversity. The radiations have arisen in a range of climates and over varying timescales. This symposium examines the key processes driving diversification across different southern land masses in order to improve our understanding of radiations generally. The aim is to compare animal and plant radiations and to determine whether similar or different drivers are involved." (Contact: Bill Lee)

Research on New Zealand plant species radiations

The well understood geological and climatic record for New Zealand, together with the simple complexity of our flora provides for a unique model system to investigate plant evolutionary and ecological processes. Some examples of plant groups that have radiated extensively in New Zealand include Asplenium, Blechnum, Celmisia, Dracophyllum, Epilobium, Hebe/Veronica, Ourisia, Pachycladon, and Ranunculus, among others. Making the most of opportunities to study and understand these plants requires interdisciplinary research in palynology, morphology, ecology, physiology and in studies of genetic variation. It requires the collaboration of biologists, mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists, climatologists and geologists.

It is with this collaborative spirit in mind that we would like to introduce the New Zealand Plant Radiation Network (NZPRN). The NZPRN aims to bring together researchers interested in botanical research to promote collaboration and discussion of ideas, methods and projects around several themes including: delimitation of species, ecological drivers of radiation, reconstructing the evolutionary history of species radiations, and evolutionary significance of hybridisation and polyploidy.

Recent Publications

1. Lehnebach, C. A. 2012. Two new species of forget-me-nots ( Myosotis, Boraginaceae) from New Zealand. Phytokeys 16:53-64. Article
2. Lee, W. G., A. J. Tanentzap, and P. B. Heenan. 2012. Plant radiation history affects community assembly: evidence from the New Zealand alpine. Biology Letters 8(4): 558-561. Article
3. Meudt, Heidi M. 2012. Taxonomic revision of New Zealand endemic species of Plantago (Plantaginaceae). New Zealand Journal of Botany 50(2):101-178. Article
4. Prebble, Jessie, Heidi M. Meudt, and Phil Garnock-Jones. 2012. Molecular phylogeny of Australasian Wahlenbergia (Campanulaceae). Australian Systematic Botany 25(1):11-30. Arcticle http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/SB11023
5. Yogeeswaran, K., C. Voelckel, S. Joly, and P. B. Heenan. 2011. Pachycladon. In Wild Crop Relatives: Genomic and Breeding Resources, ed. C. Kole. pp. 227-249. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Berlin, Heidelberg.
6. Smissen, R.D., P.J. de Lange, M. J. Thorsen, C. C. Ogle. Species delimitation and genetic variation in the rare New Zealand endemic grass genus Simplicia. New Zeaalnd Journal of Botany 49:187-199. Article
7. Smissen, R. D., Galbany-Casals, M., Breitwieser, I. 2011. Ancient allopolyploidy in the everlasting daisies (Asteraceae: Gnaphalieae) - complex relationships among extant clades. Taxon 60: 649-662. Article
8. Prebble, Jessie, Chris Cupido, Heidi M. Meudt, and Phil Garnock-Jones. 2011. Biogeography and a first phylogeny of Wahlenbergia (Campanulaceae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 59:636-648. Article
9. Glenny, D., A. J. Fife, P. J. Brownsey, M. A. M. Renner, J. E. Braggins, J. E. Beever, R. Hitchmough. 2011. Threatened and uncommon bryophytes of New Zealand (2010 revision). 49:305-327. Article
10. Meudt, Heidi M. 2011. AFLP data reveal a history of auto- and allopolyploidy in New Zealand endemic species of Plantago (Plantaginaceae): New perspectives on a taxonomically-challenging group. International Journal of Plant Sciences 172:220-237. Article
11. Stölting, Kai N., Andrew C. Clarke, Heidi M. Meudt, Wolf U. Blankenhorn, and Anthony B. Wilson. 2011. Cost-effective fluorescent amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analyses using a three primer system. Molecular Ecology Resources 11:494-502. Article
12. Heenan, P. B., and P. J. de Lange. 2011. Myoporum semotum (Scrophulariaceae), a new tree species from the Chatham Islands, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany 49:17-26. Article
13. Perrie, Leon R., Daniel J. Ohlsen, Lara D. Shepherd, Michael Garrett, Patrick J. Brownsey and Michael J. Bayly. 2011. Tasmanian and Victorian populations of the fern Asplenium hookerianum result from independent dispersals from New Zealand. Australian Systematic Botany 23(6):387-382. Article
14. Wagstaff, Steven J., Ilse Breitwieser, Motomi Ito. Evolution and biogeography of Pleurophyllum (Astereae, Asteraceae), a small genus of megaherbs endemic to the subantarctic islands. American Journal of Botany 98:62-75. Article
15. Wagstaff, Steven J., and Jennifer A. Tate. Phylogeny and character evolution in the New Zealand endemic genus Plagianthus (Malveae, Malvaceae). Systematic Botany 36(2):405-418. Article
16. Mirzaei, Mehdi, Dana Pascovici, Tim Keighley, Iniga George, Claudia Voelckel, Peter B. Heenan^, Paul A. Haynes. 2011. Shotgun proteomic profiling of five species of New Zealand Pachycladon. Proteomics 11(1):166-171. Article
17. Bickford, Christopher P., John E. Hunt and Peter B. Heenan. 2011. Microclimate characteristics of alpine bluff ecosystems of New Zealand's South Island, and implications for plant growth. New Zealand Journal of Ecology 35(3): 273–279. Article
18. Woo, Vincent L., Minde M. Funke, James F. Smith, Peter J. Lockhart, Philip J. Garnock-Jones. 2011. New World origins of southwest Pacific Gesneriaceae: Multiple movements across and within the South Pacific. International Journal of Plant Sciences 172(3):434-457. Article
19. Malinska, Hana, Jennifer A. Tate, Evgeny Mavrodiev, Roman Matyasek, K. Yoong Lim, Andrew R. Leitch, Douglas E. Soltis, Pamela S. Soltis, Ales Kovarik. 2011. Ribosomal RNA genes evolution in Tragopogon: A story of New and Old World allotetraploids and the synthetic lines. Taxon 60(2):348-354. Article
20. Knapp, M., A. C. Clarke, K. A. Horsburgh, and E. A. Matisoo-Smith. 2011. Setting the stage:building and working in an ancient DNA laboratory. Annals of Anatomy. In press. Article
21. Kavanagh, P., C. Lehnebach; C. Shae, & K.C. Burns. 2011. Allometry of sexual size dimorphism in dioecious plants: Do plants obey Rensch's rule? American Naturalist. In press.
22. Shepherd LD, Perrie LR. 2011. Microsatellite DNA analyses of a highly disjunct New Zealand tree reveals strong differentiation and implies a formerly more continuous distribution. Molecular Ecology 20: 1389-1400. Article

For more publications relevant to New Zealand plant radiations see here. We are building up our publications list, starting with the most recent papers, so check back again to see what else has been added.

NZPRN Web Utilities

• Gemmill_et_all_IBC2011.pptx: Gemmill et al. e-poster from IBC2011

• Advertising_flyer_-_Four_CSIRO_Research-Collections_Scientists.pdf: Advertising_flyer_-_Four_CSIRO_Research-Collections_Scientists.pdf