Implications of the changing phylogenetic relationships of Acacia s.l. on the biological control of Vachellia nilotica ssp. indica in Australia

Di Taylor and Dhileepan have published “Implications of the changing phylogenetic relationships of Acacia s.l. on the biological control of Vachellia nilotica ssp. indica in Australia” in Annals of Applied Biology. Prickly acacia, originating from the Indian subcontinent, is a major weed of western Queensland and has been a target for biological control since 1980. Since then, there have been significant changes in its phylogenetic and taxonomic relationships due to advancements in DNA sequencing and cladistics. These changes affect the biological control projects. Formerly in the genus Acacia, a large (>1,000 spp.), iconic group in Australia, prickly acacia is now part of the genus Vachellia which is more closely related to other mimosoid genera than to Acacia as now defined. The legume subfamilies have also been reclassified with subfamily Mimosoideae (to which Vachellia belongs) now within subfamily Caesalpinioideae. A new host test list for host specificity testing was therefore proposed. Still following centrifugal-phylogenetic principles, the proposed list is shorter than past lists with 46 plant species including five Vachellia species, six “Mimoseae” species and 26 Acacia species. The number of species from legume subfamilies other than the new Caesalpinioideae is greatly reduced.

Taylor, D.B.J. and Dhileepan, K. 2019. Implications of the changing phylogenetic relationships of Acacia s.l. on the biological control of Vachellia nilotica ssp. indica in Australia. Annals of Applied Biology 174(2): 238-247.