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Cyperaceae in a data‐rich era: New evolutionary insights from solid frameworks

Cyperaceae are among the 10 most diverse angiosperm families and the third largest among monocots (Christenhusz & Byng, 2016), with a critical ecological role in wetlands and in high‐latitude and high‐elevation ecosystems. Sedges represent an ideal model plant family to study evolutionary biology because of their species richness, global distribution, large discrepancies in lineage diversity, broad range of ecological preferences, and adaptations including multiple origins of C4 photosynthesis and holocentric chromosomes (Larridon et al., 2021a). In the last two decades, molecular phylogenetics has revolutionized our understanding of the sedge family. The first phylogenetic approaches beyond morphology used chromosomes (e.g., Heilbron, 1924), relationships with parasitic fungi (e.g., Savile & Calder, 1954), and flavonoids (e.g., Kukkonen, 1971). However, the current systematic framework of Cyperaceae started to take root with the advent of the first suprageneric phylogeny of Cyperaceae (based on a single chloroplast marker ‐rbcL‐ and a limited sampling; Muasya et al., 1998) and the first molecular phylogeny of Carex s.l. (based on nuclear ‐ITS‐ sequence data; Starr et al., 1999). Through collaboration and technical advances such as high‐throughput sequencing, we have now achieved much more in‐depth sampling of taxa and DNA regions. Thanks to these efforts, the latest evolutionary relationships retrieved for the sedge family have obtained stronger support than in previous works. On the one hand, new phylogenomic approaches have generated a wealth of sequence data, allowing re‐investigation of fast‐evolving Cyperaceae lineages in which relationships could not be resolved using Sanger sequencing data (Larridon et al., 2020). On the other hand, the increasing availability of bioclimatic data, digitized herbarium material, communication channels, plant material interchange opportunities, and new bioinformatic tools has allowed the gathering, analysis, and processing of information in a way that was not possible just a decade ago. This has enabled continuous and successful collaborations among researchers across the globe, and it has opened new research horizons for the international Cyperaceae research community to investigate the systematics, taxonomy, biogeography, ecology, morphology, and evolution of key characters in sedges such as chromosomes and C4 photosynthesis. The achievements of the Global Carex Group (GCG) serve as a best‐practice example. In 2013, this consortium of researchers initiated a collaborative sampling effort that led to an on‐hand sampling of about 80% of the approximately 2000 species of the giant genus Carex. Among other milestones, the GCG has conducted a massive sequencing effort (Jiménez‐Mejías et al., 2016a), performed a thorough revision of the fossil record of Carex (Jiménez‐Mejías et al., 2016b), and provided Carex with a robust backbone phylogeny of its major lineages using phylogenomics (Villaverde et al., 2020). Together, this allowed for the first time the possibility of addressing the biogeographic history of Carex from a global perspective using a sampling of >60% of the c. 2000 spp. of the genus (Martín‐Bravo et al., 2019). Moreover, with the recent creation of the International Sedge Society, wider and even more ambitious research projects involving the entire international Cyperaceae research community will soon be possible. This Special Issue brings together a series of the most modern studies on the systematics and evolution of Cyperaceae that are the result of the new opportunities offered by our data‐rich era and international collaboration. The increased availability of DNA sequence data has led to higher‐level taxonomic changes in Cyperaceae. Previously organized into four subfamilies, 14 tribes, and 104 genera (Goetghebeur, 1998), the earliest DNA sequence studies (e.g., Muasya et al., 2009a, 2009b) demonstrated that many of these traditional groups were defined by plesiomorphies and homoplasies, which meant that numerous tribes and genera were unnatural. At the tribal level, significant changes were made to the circumscription of tribe Schoeneae with the exclusion of lineages now placed in tribes Carpheae and Cladieae (Semmouri et al., 2019), and within the Scirpo‐ Caricoid Clade, where Scirpeae was narrowly defined and four new tribes were created (Léveillé‐Bourret et al., 2018a, 2018b; Léveillé‐Bourret & Starr, 2019). In this Special Issue, Starr et al. (2021) and Larridon et al. (2021a) use targeted sequencing data in concert with traditional data sources to propose new tribal rearrangements and re‐ circumscriptions. Starr et al. (2021) focus on tribe Fuireneae s.l., a group long known to be paraphyletic (e.g., Semmouri et al., 2019), but whose circumscription had not changed due to a lack of support for trees. With the benefit of significant novel sequence data and a topology congruent with morphology and embryo features, they propose a new classification for the Fuireneae s.l. Grade that involves four tribes, one of which is new. Larridon et al. (2021a) use a representative sampling of almost all the recognized sedge genera to provide a new classification of the family supported by phylogenomic data. This paper also provides a complete overview of the classification history of Cyperaceae.