Australasian Systematic Botany Society No
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Newsletter Australasian Systematic Botany Society No. 187, June 2021 2 8 21 July Conference Book reviews Our beginning Have you booked? Mushrooming, Seaweeds, Minutes of our first meeting Botanical art, Plants for kids, in 1973! Perth’s coastal plants Australasian Systematic Botany Society Incorporated ASBS Research Committee Chair: Heidi Meudt, ex officio Australasian Systematic Botany Society Sarah Mathews, Joanne Birch, Katharina Incorporated Council Nargar, Murray Henwood Public Officer Council President Anna Monro Mike Bayly [email protected] The University of Melbourne Parkville Advisory Standing Committees Victoria 3010, Australia Financial (+613)/(03) 8344 5055 Chair: John Clarkson, ex officio [email protected] Patrick Brownsey, David Cantrill, Bob Hill Ad hoc adviser: Bruce Evans Vice-President Grants Policy Heidi Meudt Chair: Heidi Meudt, ex officio Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Gillian Brown, Alexander Schmidt-Lebuhn, PO Box 467, Cable St Jen Tate, Peter Weston, Peter Wilson Wellington 6140, New Zealand (+644)/(04) 381 7127 Webmasters [email protected] Anna Monro [email protected] Secretary Murray Fagg Hervé Sauquet [email protected] Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust Mrs Macquaries Rd Facebook Group Administrators Sydney NSW 2000, Australia Todd McLay (+612)/(02) 9231 8316 [email protected] [email protected] Mike Bayly [email protected] Treasurer John Clarkson ASBS Newsletter Editorial Team QLD Dept. of Environment and Science Editor PO Box 975 Lizzy Joyce Atherton QLD 4883, Australia [email protected] (+617)/(07) 4091 8170 Editor (for No. 187) [email protected] Alex George [email protected] Councillor Section Editor — News Kelly Shepherd Todd McLay Western Australian Herbarium [email protected] Locked Bag 104 Associate Editor (for No. 187) & Book reviews Bentley Delivery Centre WA 6983, Australia John Clarkson (+618)/(08) 9219 9129 [email protected] [email protected] Councillor Connect with us Katharina Nargar Australian Tropical Herbarium, JCU http://www.asbs.org.au PO Box 6811, Australasian Systematic Botany Cairns Qld 4870, Australia Society (ASBS) (+617)/(07) 4232 1686 [email protected] @ASBS_botany Previous issue No. 186 published: 12 March 2021 (digital), 15 March 2021 (print) i Australasian Systematic Botany Society Newsletter Contents In this issue 2 From the President 4 Biodiverse Futures - Systematics in a Changing World 5 ASBS Eichler Funding News 5 Eichler application deadlines 6 ABRS update: Flora, Bush Blitz news 7 Genomics for Australian Plants update 9 Taxonomy Australia report 11 Herbarium News 17 Book Reviews 27 News 38 In the beginning... 41 Our logos 44 The Newsletter 44 The Society 45 Chapter conveners 45 Major Australasian herbaria and systematics institutions contacts Australasian Systematic Botany Society Newsletter 1 President’s Report etc. have been prepared (details to be an- From the President nounced soon). We will, nonetheless, hold Mike Bayly a session during the conference (Tuesday July 13), where we will provide an update on council activities and encourage discus- For many of us here in Melbourne, life sion with members about society business. has started to return to ‘normal’ in recent This will not be a formal General Meeting, months. For me, it has been great to be largely because we missed the deadline, back on campus and to interact more reg- under clause 25 of the society’s Rules, for ularly with students and colleagues from giving four months’ notice of the meeting, both MELU and MEL. I’m even on the cusp but we will run it with a similar intent to such of doing some interstate fieldwork, which a meeting. seemed unimaginable just a few months ago. I hope that such normality in Australia and Nancy Burbidge Medallist NZ will hold, at least mostly, but am looking It is my great pleasure to announce that with horror at the raging pandemic in other Kevin Thiele is the latest recipient of the parts of the world and hope it can be curbed Nancy Burbidge Medal, our society’s highest in good time. honour. Kevin will be well known to most of Since the last Newsletter, the ASBS Council our members for his substantial contributions has met about monthly via Zoom. We have to research, teaching, innovation and lead- continued to work on regular society business, including student grants (see announcement by Heidi Meudt below in this issue), as well as planning for a new website (led by Kelly Shepherd), the impending conference and other initiatives that are bubbling along. Upcoming conference I’m looking forward to the upcoming confer- ence, which will be a great focus for society activities. It is great to see that the website is now populated with information and that registration and abstract submissions are cur- rently open. It will, of course, be an unusual meeting for us, adapting to an online environ- ment, but I hope we will still get the sense of community and interaction that we normally associate with conferences, and I know the Organising Committee is doing their best to ership in plant systematics. He has authored make it work. over 130 scientific papers and reports, and 80 plant names (mainly in Dilleniaceae, Pro- Apart from the scientific program, there will teaceae and Rhamnaceae) including 65 new be a good mix of keynote speakers, social taxa (three of them genera), and 17 new events and society meetings/discussions. combinations. He has played key roles in the Because of the mid-year timing of the con- development of novel tools including LucID, ference, the ASBS AGM will not coincide Keybase and the eFlora platform for Austra- with the meeting; it will be held later in the lia. From 2006 to 2015 he was Curator of the year, when the audited financial statements Western Australian Herbarium, leading the 2 Australasian Systematic Botany Society Newsletter President’s Report institution through a period of growth and ideal, the current flurry of online conferences great change. During that time (2012–2014) potentially allows more of our students he was also Chair of the Council of Heads to ‘attend’ international conferences than of Australasian Herbaria and helped to drive would ordinarily be possible. significant development in key infrastructure such as the Atlas of Living Australia. More Genomics for Australian Plants recently, he has played a crucial role in de- As reported in the last Newsletter, the three velopment of the Decadal Plan for Taxonomy main strands of the GAP program (reference and Systematics in Australia and New Zealand genomes, phylogenomics, conservation ge- and, subsequently, as Director of Taxonomy nomics) are progressing well. Plans for stage Australia, which is entering the challenging 2 of the phylogenomics program are now and exciting phase of trying to implement getting underway and GAP is now calling for that Plan. Sound science, visionary thinking, Requests for Partnership for that; the call is inspirational leadership and a good dose of open until 30th June and details are available unstinting determination are hallmarks of at https://www.genomicsforaustralianplants. Kevin’s substantial contributions. com/stage-2-aatol-rfp/. The Medal will be presented to Kevin, in Workshops accompanying the upcoming some form, as part of proceedings at the up- ASBS conference (July 5–8), as part of the coming conference, where he will also deliver GAP initiative, will likely be of interest to a Burbidge Lecture. That means we will have those who are starting to grapple with the the pleasure of two Burbidge lectures at the analysis and interpretation of large genomic meeting, with the other being given by 2020 datasets, whether through GAP or other re- Medal recipient Wendy Nelson. search programs. The workshops will deal with bioinformatics pipelines for analysing Student ‘travel’ grants and conference target capture/target enrichment data of support the kind used in the GAP phylogenomics Last year, ASBS received funds from the program, and details are available at: https:// Department of Agriculture, Water and the asbs2021.bablglobal.com/workshop/. Also Environment to offer travel grants for stu- relevant to this are recent webinars, hosted dents attending conferences relevant to by Australian Biocommons, including one by taxonomy and systematics, in lieu of the Anna Syme on chloroplast genome assembly grants previously administered by ABRS. As a (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4x- result of covid-related travel restrictions, and 90JraT-4), Alexander Schmidt-Lebuhn on uncertainty about when they might be lifted, conflict in multi-gene datasets (https://www. we did not offer any grants last year. Some of biocommons.org.au/events/conflict-mul- these funds, as well as society funds will be tigene-datasets), and Lars Nauheimer on used to support student attendance at the detection of and phasing of hybrid accessions upcoming ASBS conference, and details of in a target capture datasets (https://www.bio- how to apply for and obtain that assistance commons.org.au/events/hybphaser); these are available on the conference website. We are available on the BioCommons YouTube are also in the process of identifying how channel if you missed them and would like to these grants might also be offered for at- catch up (https://www.youtube.com/Austra- tendance at other relevant conferences, and lianBioCommons). hope to make an announcement about that Mike Bayly (email: president.asbs@gmail. soon, via email to members. Ongoing travel com) restrictions mean that most of these grants will likely cover conference registration fees, rather than travel costs. Although that is not Australasian Systematic Botany Society Newsletter 3 Biodiverse Futures microphone, or anytime via the chat Biodiverse Futures function. • Talks: We ask our speakers to give live - Systematics in a presentations where possible to allow live interaction with the audience. For Changing World speakers in distant time zones we offer the option to pre-record talks.