In collaboration with international partners, a team of researchers from the University of Innsbruck could reconstruct the complex evolutionary history of European woodsrushes (Luzula sect. Luzula). Using genomic methods, hybridisation and chromosome duplication were identified as key drivers of speciation in this plant group.

The results were published in „Systematic Biology“ and „Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution”.

Valentin Heimer, Pau Carnicero, Carolina Carrizo García, Andreas Hilpold, Jasna Dolenc Koce, J Luis Leal, Mingai Li, Claudio Varotto, Peter Schönswetter, Božo Frajman (2025): Hybridization and Polyploidy Shaped the Evolutionary History of a Complex of Cryptic Species in European Woodrushes (Luzula sect. Luzula), Systematic Biology, 2025;, syaf065, https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syaf065

Carolina Carrizo García, Valentin Heimer, Peter Schönswetter, Claudio Varotto, Božo Frajman, Mingai Li (2026): Contrasting diversification patterns across wood rushes from Luzula sect. Luzula (Juncaceae) revealed by 3RAD genome-wide sequencing, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, Volume 214, 2026, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2025.108455.