Journal of Systematics JSE and Evolution doi: 10.1111/jse.12536 Research Article Plastid phylogenomics improve phylogenetic resolution in the Lauraceae † † † Yu Song1,2,3 ,Wen‐Bin Yu1,2,3 ,Yun‐Hong Tan1,2,3 ,Jian‐Jun Jin4 ,BoWang1,2,Jun‐Bo Yang4*, Bing Liu5,6*,and Richard T. Corlett1,2,3* 1Center for Integrative Conservation, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla 666303, Yunnan, China 2Center of Conservation Biology, Core Botanical Gardens, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla 666303, Yunnan, China 3Southeast Asia Biodiversity Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yezin, Nay Pyi Taw 05282, Myanmar 4Germplasm Bank of Wild Species, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China 5State Key Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China 6Sino‐African Joint Research Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430074, China † These authors contributed equally to this work. *Authors for correspondence. Richard T. Corlett. E‐mail:
[email protected]; Bing Liu. E‐mail:
[email protected]; Jun‐Bo Yang. E‐mail:
[email protected] Received 21 March 2019; Accepted 31 July 2019; Article first published online 24 August 2019 Abstract The family Lauraceae is a major component of tropical and subtropical forests worldwide, and includes some commercially important timber trees and medicinal plants. However, phylogenetic relationships within Lauraceae have long been problematic due to low sequence divergence in commonly used markers, even between morphologically distinct taxa within the family. Here we present phylogenetic analyses of 43 newly generated Lauraceae plastomes together with 77 plastomes obtained from GenBank, representing 24 genera of Lauraceae and 17 related families of angiosperms, plus nine barcodes from 19 additional species in 18 genera of Lauraceae, in order to reconstruct highly supported relationships for the Lauraceae.