Morphological and molecular evidence for major re-circumscriptions in and eight new species of Melichrus R.Br. (Ericaceae subfam. Epacridoideae) in eastern Australia

Title
Morphological and molecular evidence for major re-circumscriptions in and eight new species of Melichrus R.Br. (Ericaceae subfam. Epacridoideae) in eastern Australia
Publication Date
2025-04-16
Author(s)
Kennedy, Helen T
Telford, Ian R H
Crayn, Darren
Bruhl, Jeremy J
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9112-4436
Email: jbruhl@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:jbruhl
Andrew, Rose L
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0099-8336
Email: randre20@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:randre20
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
CSIRO Publishing
Place of publication
Australia
DOI
10.1071/SB24031
UNE publication id
une:1959.11/70677
Abstract

The genus Melichrus R.Br. has received very little taxonomic attention and treatments have largely disagreed on species delimitation. The eastern Australian clade of Melichrus was last revised in 1958. Over 60 years later we present new, in-depth evidence for species delimitation. A morphological dataset (90 individuals from 68 populations, scored for 26 characters) was analysed using NMDS ordination with Bayesian Inference cluster modelling (mclust) and UPGMA hierarchical clustering to detect morphological discontinuities in the genus that may indicate species boundaries. Discontinuities in the morphological analyses were compared with those apparent in clustering (principal component analysis, SplitsTree Neighbour-Net, STRUCTURE and conStruct) and statistical analyses (HE, HO, FIS and FST) of a DArTseq SNP dataset of 548 samples from 110 populations of Melichrus. These new lines of evidence form the basis of detailed recommendations for a revised species taxonomy of Melichrus including the description of eight new species, recircumscription of previously described species and the correction of a longstanding nomenclatural misapplication.

Link
Citation
Australian Systematic Botany, 38(3), p. 1-37
ISSN
1446-5701
1030-1887
Start page
1
End page
37
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

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