Legume Phylogeny Working Group Reports

Intro by Colin Hughes

The Legume Phylogeny Working Group, LPWG was established in 2010 as an informal global consortium of legume systematists to foster collaborative research in legume systematics, building on several decades of data sharing and collaboration since the first International Legume Conference organised by Roger Polhill and colleagues in 1978.

While the name LPWG implies a specific focus on phylogenetics, in practice the LPWG spans a broader range of activities across legume systematics and evolution as a whole. LPWG activities have resulted in two major collaborative papers published under the LPWG umbrella:

  • An overview paper in 2013 [LPWG. 2013. Legume phylogeny and classification in the 21st century: Progress, prospects and lessons for other species–rich clades. TAXON 62: 217-248. https://doi.org/10.12705/622.8
  • A major community-endorsed phylogenetically-based subfamily classification of the legume family in 2017 [LPWG. 2017. A new subfamily classification of the Leguminosae based on a taxonomically comprehensive phylogeny. TAXON 66: 44-77. https://doi.org/10.12705/661.3

In May 2020, an informal pop-up meeting of a subset of the LPWG led to the establishment of four new working groups under the LPWG umbrella. These working groups are focused on Taxonomy, Phylogenomics, Occurrence Data, and Functional Trait Data, and have been established with a view to further stimulating and coordinating large-scale collaborative family-wide data assembly and analyses. Each working group has two coordinators and short reports on the aims and activities of each working group are presented here.

It is important to note that these working groups are open to wider participation by all! If you want to get involved in a specific working group, please contact the individual working group coordinators (contact details below).

Reports Introduction
Colin Hughes

Taxonomy Working Group
Marianne le Roux, Anne Bruneau

Phylogenomics Working Group
Felix Forest, Erik Koenen

Occurrence Data Working Group
Edeline Gagnon, Joe Miller

Functional Traits Working Group
Renske Onstein, Leonardo Borges