Symposia

Title of symposium:
Origins, assembly and evolution of the South and SE Asian biota: insights from rocks, fossils, genes and plots

Principal organizer:
Dr. Robert M. Kooyman
Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, Australia; Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia; Missouri Botanical Garden, Missouri, USA

Co-organizers:
Prof. Darren Crayn
Australian Tropical Herbarium, James Cook University, Australia

Prof. Peter Wilf
Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University, USA

Symposium summary:
This symposium on the ‘Origins, assembly and evolution of the South and SE Asian biota’ integrates selected evidence from diverse sources, including geology and landscape evolution, climatology, paleobotany / palynology, ecology (functional and community), and genetics (phylogenetics and genomics). The intention is to showcase the most recent insights and updates on this topic from multiple disciplines and sources, and explore some of the contrasts in findings between these different methods (e.g., contrasts in timelines between the fossil record and phylogenetic dating of divergences; and contrasts in interpretation of floristic and phylogenetic relationships of the SE Asian rainforest biota). The overall objective is to synthesize and contextualize understanding of the timelines and assembly of some of the most threatened, complex and biodiverse systems (tropical rainforests) in one of the most geologically and geographically complex regions on Earth.

List of Symposium Speakers and Presentation Titles

1. Dr. Robert Morley
   Title: Assembly of the Southeast Asian flora in relation to tectonic and climate change
   Affiliations: Palynova; Department of Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway University. Surrey, UK
2. Associate Professor Ferry Slik (Curator of the UBD Herbarium)
   Title: Floristic and phylogenetic grouping of the SE Asian rainforest
   Affiliations: Faculty of Science, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Brunei Darussalam.
3. Dr. Robert M. Kooyman
   Title: Paleo-Antarctic Plant Lineages in Rainforests of Southeast Asia: timing, diversity and ecology
   Affiliations: Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, Australia; Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia; Missouri Botanical Garden, Missouri, USA.
4. Prof. Peter Wilf
   Title: Patagonia to Kinabalu: plant fossils show significant West Gondwanan legacy in SE Asian rainforests
   Affiliation: Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University, USA.
5. Assoc. Prof. Tao Su
   Title: Timelines, origins and ancestry of modern Asian biodiversity
   Affiliation: Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, CAS, Yunnan, China.
6. Prof. Darren Crayn (or Ms Elizabeth Joyce)
   Title: The Sunda-Sahul floristic exchange
   Affiliation: Australian Tropical Herbarium, James Cook University, Australia
7. Dr. Sarah Mathews (or Dr. Cam Webb)
   Title: The biogeography of Indonesian forests
   Affiliation: CSIRO, Australia
8. Dr. Joeri Strijk
   Title: Sino-Australasian Lauraceae: Dissecting Genomes, Islands and Time
   Affiliation: Biodiversity Genomics Team, Guangxi University, China
9. Dr. Caroline Pannell
   Title: The likely contribution of vertebrate seed-dispersers to the Sunda-Sahul floristic exchange.
   Affiliation: Dept. Plant Sciences, University of Oxford, UK
10. Dr. Paul Oliver
    Title: Contingency, determinism and the assembly of insular communities: lessons from trans-Wallacean lizard radiations.
    Affiliation: Australian National University and Griffith University, Australia
11. Dr. Michael Balke
    Title: Complex patterns of biodiversity across geologically even more complex tropical landscapes.
    Affiliation: Zoologische Staatssammlung Munich, Germany
12. Dr. Rafe Brown
    Title: Timing, pathways and outcomes of frog dispersal between Sunda and Sahul.
    Affiliation: KU Biodiversity Institute, University of Kansas, USA
13. Ms Sam Yap/ Dr. Maurizio Rossetto
    Title: Filters of floristic exchange: How traits and climate shape the rain forest invasion of Sahul from Sunda
    Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, Australia