New Insights into the Systematics and Biology of Brazilian Leguminosae (Fabaceae)

Abstract

The Catalogo de Plantas e Fungos do Brasil (Catalogue of the Plants and Fungi of Brazil) recorded 2694 species in 210 genera of the economically, ecologically, and phylogenetically important plant family Leguminosae (alternative name Fabaceae; de Lima et al. 2010). Of those, 1458 species (54%) were listed as endemic to Brazil. Unsurprisingly, such a rich legume flora has attracted much attention from botanists for more than 150 years. George Bentham (1859, 1870) contributed accounts of the legumes known in Brazil in the second half of the nineteenth century to Martius’s Flora Brasiliensis, and much of the early floristic and systematic study of Brazilian plants was carried out by botanists from Europe and North America. But that is no longer the case. At the Sixth International Legume Conference held in Johannesburg, South Africa, in January 2013, there were 146 participants from 26 countries, and 25 of the attendees (17%) were Brazilian. Leguminosae research in Brazil is in good hands, as evidenced by an increasing flow of high-quality papers led by Brazilian first authors, publishing in international journals. A number of recent initiatives have facilitated wide and fruitful collaborations between Brazilian legume researchers and those in other countries. In the past few years, increased Brazilian state and federal funding programs have assisted Brazilian scientists wishing to spend study periods abroad, including as doctoral students and postdocs. Knowledge exchange, capacity building, and lifelong collaborations have been the result, with an associated increase in multiauthored, international, higherimpact papers. In Phoenix, Arizona, in 2010, a small group of the international legume research community who wished to further integrate legume scientists around the world set up the Legume Phylogeny Working Group (LPWG), which has since published two key papers under the LPWG umbrella (LPWG 2013a, 2013b). A major aim of the LPWG is to deliver a new, phylogenetically underpinned classification of Leguminosae, with an anticipated increase in the number of subfamilies recognized, because it has long been known that subfamilyCaesalpinioideae is not monophyletic. Out of the LPWG was spawned the LegumeMorphologyWorkingGroup (LMWG), a closely affiliated body set up to compile and share data on legume morphology and functional traits, one important use of which will be to add diagnosability to the main clades in the legume molecular phylogeny. The inaugural meeting of the LMWG took place during the XI Congresso Latinoamericano de Botanica held in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, in October 2014. The second meeting of the LMWG was held in Botucatu, Sao Paulo state, Brazil, in November 2015, further displaying Brazil’s important role in modern legume systematics and biology. The second meeting was co-organized by Dra. Ana Paula Fortuna Perez of the Uni-