Phylogenetics, taxonomy, and biogeography of Asteraceae (daisy family)

The Asteraceae (daisies) are one of the two largest plant families, accounting for ca. 22,500-30,000 species, or ca. 10% of all flowering plants. There are more than 1,100 native daisies in Australia, plus 300 introduced, often weedy species.

Australian daisies are ecologically significant as elements of the alpine flora, e.g. in Kosciuszko National Park or central Tasmania, and as mass-flowering ephemerals in the arid zone. The edible rootstock of murnong, Microseris walteri, was an important food item for indigenous Australians. The golden everlasting, Xerochrysum bracteatum, is a popular ornamental worldwide and has been bred into many colourful variants.

Our team studies the evolution, taxonomy, and biogeography of Australian daisies. We describe species as new to science so that they can be managed and protected, improve classifications to make them more predictive of relatedness, and contribute to the understanding of Australia’s unique biodiversity.

We contribute to and collaborate in the Genomics for Australian Plants (GAP) and Plant and Fungal Tree of Life (PAFTOL) initiatives and, inside CSIRO, the Future Science Platform Environomics. Key achievements of the last two years are the establishment of higher-throughput, miniaturised DNA libraries in sequence capture and the improvement of bioinformatics pipelines in collaboration with colleagues at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.