Reconciling incongruence and implications for taxonomy/systematics in the phylogenomic era.

Francis J. Nge (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement and National Herbarium of New South Wales, Botanic Gardens of Sydney).

Incongruence could arise through different datasets (e.g. molecular vs. morphological or nuclear vs organellar), analytical methods (e.g., concatenated vs. coalescent), and even across different genes in the phylogenomic era. Conflicting results from any of these would complicate not only taxonomic and systematic outcomes, but also downstream analyses and interpretations that rely on these results. Incongruence across datasets will increase as we get greater access to molecular sequence data across an increasingly large number of organismal groups. Thus, ensuring that these incongruences be taken into account is ever more crucial, e.g.  in order to meet the challenge of the Decadal Plan. Here, I present several case study examples based on different plant groups across a broad range of scenarios and how incongruent results have affected taxonomic, systematic, and conservation outcomes. Increasing awareness, current solutions, and future directions will also be discussed.