TAXONOMY WORKING GROUP

Coordinators: Marianne le Roux (South African National Biodiversity Institute, SANBI, South Africa), Anne Bruneau (Université de Montréal, Canada) & Juliana Gastaldello Rando (Universidade Federal do Oeste da Bahia, Brazil)

The Legume Phylogeny Working Group (LPWG) Taxonomy Working Group is steering efforts to create a global consensus checklist of legume species. Launched in 2020, this initiative aims to establish a unified reference for scientific names in the legume family, enhancing communication and collaboration across all disciplines. To date, the names of 50% of all legume genera have been reviewed with contributions from 101 experts across 28 countries.

In April 2024, a week-long virtual check-a-thon brought together taxonomists to validate and refine the checklist. During the event, participants utilized Rhakhis, an innovative online name-editing tool, which was tested and implemented for the first time in 2023. Since then, we have continued to use a mix of editing using Google Spreadsheets and Rhakhis (see below for guidance). The list of genera that still need to be edited is listed here and is referenced in the description of the Legume Taxonomy Working Group on the Legume Data Portal.

A significant milestone was achieved in May 2024 with the release of the fifth version of the legume checklist. This and previous versions are available on Zenodo, with the latest data accessible via the Legume Data Portal.

The legume checklist featured prominently at the International Botanical Congress held in Madrid, Spain, in July 2024. A symposium titled “Legume Systematics: From Collaborative Networks to Genome Sequencing” showcased the checklist in a presentation that highlighted how collaborative tools are advancing our understanding of legume taxonomy, biogeography, and evolution. Notably, discussions during the congress led to a new initiative aimed at revising the higher-level classification of the Papilionoideae subfamily—a critical step, as this group represents the largest gap in name verification within the checklist.

Slide presented at the International Congress in Madrid, featuring the talk’s title and its collaborators.

If you’re interested in contributing to the Taxonomy Working Group, we encourage you to explore the July 2024 news item on the Legume Data Portal. It offers detailed guidance on how to participate, with data organized by subfamily for easier access. Checks can be conducted via subfamily-level spreadsheets (which are listed in this same Legume Data Portal news item) or directly online through Rhakhis. Looking ahead, data maintenance will become a central focus, including the routine review of unplaced names within Rhakhis.

By joining the Taxonomy Working Group, you’ll have the opportunity to share your research with a global audience, foster collaborations, gain co-authorship opportunities through contributions to the checklist, and become part of the Legume Taxon Expert Network. The Taxonomy Working Group supports major international initiatives, including World Flora Online, the Catalogue of Life, and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

For inquiries or to join the group, please contact Marianne le Roux, Anne Bruneau, or Juliana Rando.

We look forward to working with you!

Gastrolobium spinosum (Papilionoideae), a species in the Papilionoideae, the subfamily still in need of specialist input for accurate name verification. Photo: Cal Wood (iNaturalist).