Abstract Detail

Biogeography

Lu, Pei-Luen [1], Liang, Yi-Shao [2].

Biogeography of Plant genus Dracaena (Asparagaceae) in Soloman Islands.

To investigate the origin and dispersal pathways between Pacific Islands for plants has long been an important issue in island biogeography. In recent years, with the progress of traffic progress and the relatively stable regime of Pacific island countries, coupled with the development of molecular phylogenetics and comparative analysis methods, the problem has made great progress. The plant genus Dracaena is called dragon tree about 120 species in the world and mostly distributed in tropics. Many of Dracaena species are used in traditional medicine and called Dragon's blood. Dracaena's sister genus Chrysodracon are located on Hawaii archipelago. The new discovery of several samples of Dracaena in the plant specimens collected from the Solomon Islands Resource Plant Survey program became the key to understand the origin and dispersal of the entire dragon tree group. Prior to this, the indigenous species of the genus Dracaena were not recorded in other islands of the deep Pacific Ocean, and Taiwan was the northern margin of Dracaena in the Pacific region. Study of Taiwan, Hawaii and Solomon Islands, the so-called Pacific Dragon Tree Triangle area of the dragon tree plants help to solve the island plant evolution and biogeographic questions. This study was constructed molecular phylogenetic tree and biogeographic data. Then, the Dracaena species collected from the world in the past few years were combined with the experimental data of the Pacific to construct the more complete phylogenetic tree. The results indicate the dispersal pathway is from Hawaii Islands to Solomans Islands to Taiwan. Among the Soloman Islands, those Dracaena species first arrived at older islands and then dispersal into younger islands. This study depicts the origin and dispersal routes of Dracaena in Solomon Islands. These results will be a useful future reference for comparative biogeographical work in other lineages in this region.

1 - National Taitung University, Life Sciences, No 369, Sec. 2, University Rd., Taitung, 95092, Taiwan
2 - Institute of Botany, The Chinese Academy of Science, No.20 Nanxincun, Xiangshan, , Beijing, 10093, China

Keywords:
Evolution
island biogeography
Phylogenetics
Systematics
Soloman Islands
Dracaena.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 4, Biogeography
Location: 105/Mayo Civic Center
Date: Monday, July 23rd, 2018
Time: 8:45 AM
Number: 4004
Abstract ID:320
Candidate for Awards:None