研究领域

Biodiversity & Plant Systematics

Biodiversity I have recently focussed on a number of issues relative to the discovery process of new species as informed decisions concerning global taxonomic priorities demand some understanding of how species are discovered and revised. We have shown: that on average there is a lag period of 35 years between collection and description of new species (see here); a very large proportion of type specimens are collected by a few 'big hitter' collectors i.e. 50% of all type specimens have been collected by 2% of collectors (see here). We have also explored, for flowering plants, why the increasing number of authors associated with species discovery do not reflect an increase in taxonomic capacity as has been claimed in recent literature. Most recently we have shown that more than 50% of the world’s natural history collections may not have a correct name (see here). Taxonomy & Foundation Monographs The aim of our Foundation Monograph approach is to accelerate the pace of taxonomic revisions of large problematic groups. The first two foundation monographs were published in 2015 on Convolvulus (see here) and Ipomoea in Bolivia (see here). Systematic theory Over the last few years I have focussed on conceptual issues of homology, deep homology and parallelism. Most recently I have returned to the issue of morphological data and phylogeny, showing that ‘phylogenetic trees do not reliably predict feature diversity’ (see here) and also re-visiting compatibility and character congruence as methods for analysing morphological data.

近期论文

查看导师新发文章 （温馨提示：请注意重名现象，建议点开原文通过作者单位确认）

Wood, J.R.I., C. Urbanetz, and R.W. Scotland, Ipomoea pantanalensis, a new species of Ipomoea L. (Convolvulaceae) from the Pantanal, Brazil. Kew Bulletin, 2016. 71(1): p. 1-3 Mitchell, T.C., Williams, B.R.M., Wood, J.R.I., Harris, D.J., Scotland, R.W. & M.A. Carine. 2016. How the temperate world was colonised by bindweeds: biogeography of the Convolvuleae (Convolvulaceae). BMC Evolutionary Biology 16 (1), 1. Scotland, R.W. & Steel, M. 2015. Circumstances in Which Parsimony but not Compatibility will be Provably Misleading. Systematic Biology 64(3): 492-504. Goodwin, Z.A., Harris, D.J., Filer, D., Wood, J.R.I. & R.W. Scotland. 2015. Widespread mistaken identity in tropical plant collections. Current Biology 25(22): 1066-1067. Khoury, C.K., Heider, B., Castañeda-Alvarez, N.P., Achicanoy, H.A., Sosa, C.C., Miller, R.E., Scotland, R.W., Wood, J.R.I., Rossel, G., Eserman, L.A., et al. 2015. Distributions, ex situ conservation priorities, and genetic resource potential of crop wild relatives of sweetpotato [Ipomoea batatas (L.) Lam., I. series Batatas]. Front. Plant. Sci. 6, 251. Wood, J.R.I., Carine, M.A., Harris, D.J., Wilkin, P., Williams, B.R.M. & R.W. Scotland. 2015. Ipomoea (Convolvulaceae) in Bolivia. Kew Bulletin 70(31): 1-124. Wood, J.R.I., Williams, B.R.M., Mitchell, T.C., Carine, M.A., Harris, D.J. & R.W. Scotland. 2015. A foundation monograph of Convolvulus. Phytokeys 51: 1-282. Bebber, D.P., Polaszek, A., Wood, J.R.I., Barker, C. & R.W. Scotland. 2014. Taxonomic capacity and author inflation. New Phytologist 202: 741–742 Bebber, D. P., Wood, J.R.I., Barker, C. & R.W. Scotland. 2014. Author inflation masks global capacity for species discovery in flowering plants. New Phytologist 201: 700–706. Williams, B., Mitchell, T., Wood, J.R.I., Harris, D., Scotland, R.W. & M.A. Carine. 2014. The process of integrating DNA sequence data in a monographic study of Convolvulus. Taxon 63(6): 1287-1306. Hay, A., Pieper, B., Cooke, E., Mandáková, T., Cartolano, M., Tattersall, A., Dello Ioio, R., McGowan, S., Barkoulas, M.,Galinha, C., Rast, M., Hofhuis, H., Then, C., Plieske, J., Ganal, M., Mott, R., Martinez-Garcia, J., Carine, M., Scotland, R.W., Gan, X., Filatov, D., Lysak, M. & M. Tsiantis. Cardamine hirsuta: a versatile genetic system for comparative studies 2014. The Plant Journal 78(1): 1-15. Kelly, S., Grenyer, R. & R.W. Scotland. 2014 Phylogenetic trees do not reliably predict feature diversity. Diversity & Distributions. 20: 600-612. Waters, M.T., Tiley, A.M.M., Kramer, E.M., Meerow, A.M., Langdale, J.A. & R.W. Scotland. 2013. The corona of the daffodil Narcissus bulbocodium shares stamen-like identity and is distinct from the orthodox floral whorls. The Plant Journal 74: 615-625.