The present and future for population genetics, species boundaries, biogeography and conservation

Abstract

This issue of Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society contains eight papers relating to population genetics and the population/species interface. Based on genetics, morphometrics and reproductive biology, several also focus on the application of the data to conservation management. We take this opportunity to present some of our thoughts on this area of research and to celebrate some recent studies that have been published in the journal and elsewhere. To conserve biodiversity effectively, we first need to know what exists, and there is a clear role for systematic and taxonomic studies in circumscribing species and in identifying high priorities for conservation (e.g. Fay, 2018, and references therein). Following on from papers using ‘traditional' and next-generation techniques to study species delimitation (Reck-Kortmann et al., 2017; Contreras-Ortiz et al., 2018; Hu et al., 2018; Cortez et al., 2019; Könyves, David & Culham, 2019; Martínez-Flores et al., 2019; Zhong et al., 2019), infraspecific taxonomy (Hardion et al., 2017; Folk et al., 2018; Tarieiev et al., 2019), hybridization (Nakahama et al., 2019) and speciation (Escudero et al., 2019), five papers in this issue focus on species delimitation, using a range of techniques. Zhang et al. (2019) use microsatellites to clarify species delimitation in Asian Sibbaldia L. (Rosaceae), and Feulner et al. (2019) use microsatellites for examining the repeated evolution of polyploids in European Sorbus L. (= Pyrus L. s.l.). Carnicero et al. (2019) investigate the relationships between two subspecies of the Sardinian endemic Cymbalaria muelleri (Moris) A.Chev., on the basis of data from amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLP), flow cytometry and morphology, and show that one is derived out of the other, leaving that subspecies paraphyletic to the other. The other two papers use morphometrics, either alone (to study species delimitation in Campanula L. from Cabo Verde; Gardère et al., 2019) or in combination with microsatellites (to study species delimitation and hybridization in Petunia Juss.; Freitas et al., 2019).