Ogasawara Islands Guam Palau Solomon Islands New Caledonia Vanuatu Fiji Tonga Samoa Cook Islands Society Islands Marquesas Islands Hawai'i Crossing the biggest ocean in the world – T he phylogeography of how plant genus Wikstroemia colonised the islands of the Pacific RUBEN COUSINS - WESTERBERG 1 , MATTHEW L. KNOPE 2 , CLIFFORD W. MORDEN 2 , NIKLAS WAHLBERG 1 AND COLIN OLITO 1 What’s your hypothesis? Vote using the provided post - it notes! If you want, feel free to write your thoughts on the note before voting Write your email address on the note too, and I’ll contact you when we have results We give great thanks to the herbaria that provided the samples necessary to conduct this research : GB, LU, K, UPSV, P, L, S, BISH, & HAW This work is made possible through a grant from the European Research Council In addition, the authors acknowledge support from the National Genomics Infrastructure in Stockholm funded by Science for Life Laboratory, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and the Swedish Research Council, and SNIC/Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science for assistance with massively parallel sequencing and access to the UPPMAX computational infrastructure Ruben Cousins - Westerberg. Department of Biology, Lund U n iversity. ruben.cousins_westerberg@biol.lu.se, +46709313813 @rucouwes.bsky.social Contact How do you think Wikstroemia dispersed? 1 DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY, LUND UNIVERSITY, LUND, SWEDEN 2 SCHOOL OF LIFE SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I AT MANOA, HONOLUL U, HI, USA Acknowledgements The entirety of the South Pacific was colonised from Australasia before Hawai'i was colonised from the Marquesas, Society Islands, Cook Islands, or Samoa Most parsimonious theory, requiring only one long - distance dispersal event Hawai'i was colonised from Japan, the Southwest Pacific was colonised from Australasia, but French Polynesia was colonised from Hawai'i Theories suggest dispersal south from Hawai'i may be easier than the reverse Hawai'i was colonised from the mainland, maybe via Japan, while the rest of the Pacific was colonised from Australasia Requires an extra long - distance dispersal event, but less dispersal against prevailing winds and currents Hypothesis 1 Hypothesis 3 Hypothesis 2 My links. This poster. Two specimens of W phillyreifolia (Hawai’i, Hawai’i), and a preserved W coriacea (Marquesas Islands, Paris Herbarium)