The paper describes the focus, scope and the rationale of PhytoKeys, a newly established, peer-reviewed, open-access journal in plant systematics. PhytoKeys is launched to respond to four main challenges of our time: (1) Appearance of electronic publications as amendments or even alternatives to paper publications; (2) Open Access (OA) as a new publishing model; (3) Linkage of electronic regist...

Whole genome sequencing is helping generate robust phylogenetic hypotheses for a range of taxonomic groups that were previously recalcitrant to classical molecular phylogenetic approaches. As a case study, we performed a shallow shotgun sequencing of eight species in the tropical tree family Chrysobalanaceae to retrieve large fragments of high-copy number DNA regions and test the potential of t...

The systematics of the even light Po isotopes (N 126) are studied in the framework of the Particle-Core Model. The strong perturbation of the systematics in the very light isotopes is interpreted as arising from the interaction between regular and intruder structures. Results of Potential Energy Surface (PES) calculations and predictions of the Pairing Vibration Model support this interpretatio...

Recent decades have predicted significant changes within our concept of plant endophytes, from only a small number specific microorganisms being able to colonize plant tissues, to whole communities that live and interact with their hosts and each other. Many of these microorganisms are responsible for health status of the plant, and have become known in recent years as plant probiotics. Contrar...

Practicing phylogenetic systematics as a sophisticated falsification research program provides a basis for claiming increased knowledge of sister species relationships and synapomorphies as evidence for those cladistic propositions. Research in phylogenetic systematics is necessarily cyclic, and the place where the positive shift in understanding occurs is subsequent to discovering the most par...