Botanic Gardens Trust, Sydney, Australia

Department of Environment and Climate Change NSW

Peter H. Weston

Position

Principal Research Scientist

Branch

Science & Public Programs

Section

Plant Diversity

Email

peter.weston@rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au

Phone

02 9231 8111

Fax

02 9251 7231

Research interests

  • systematics of Proteaceae, Orchidaceae, Fabaceae, Rutaceae, Lauraceae
  • historical biogeography
  • evolutionary ecology
  • pollination biology
  • co-evolution
  • history and philosophy of systematics

Keywords

systematics phylogeny evolution Proteaceae Orchidaceae Fabaceae Rutaceae Lauraceae biogeography ecology co-evolution pollination philosophy

Current research projects

  • Phylogeny, biogeography and evolutionary ecology of the Proteaceae
  • Evolution and biogeography of selected taxa in the tribes Embothrieae and Roupaleae (Proteaceae)
  • Systematics and comparative biology of the Diurideae (Orchidaceae)
  • Phylogeny of Australian Lauraceae
  • Historical biogeography of Australian and southern hemisphere floras 

Key publications

  • Crisp, M.D. & P.H. Weston (1987) Cladistics and legume systematics, with an analysis of the Bossiaeeae, Brongniartieae and Mirbelieae. Pp. 65 130, in C.H. Stirton (ed.) Advances in Legume Systematics Part 3 (Royal Botanic Gardens: Kew).
  • Weston, P.H. (1988) Indirect and direct methods in systematics. Pp. 27 56 in C.J. Humphries (ed.) Ontogeny and Systematics (Columbia Univ. Press: New York).
  • Crisp, M.D. & Weston, P.H. (1993) Geographic and ontogenetic variation in morphology of Australian waratahs (Telopea: Proteaceae). Syst. Biol. 42: 49-76.
  • Weston, P.H. & Crisp, M.D. (1994) Cladistic biogeography of Waratahs and their allies (Embothrieae: Proteaceae) across the Pacific. Aust. Syst. Bot. 7: 225-249.
  • Weston, P.H. (1994) Methods for rooting cladistic trees. Pp. 125-155, in D.J. Siebert, R.W. Scotland and D.M. Williams (eds.) Models in Phylogeny Reconstruction (Oxford Univ. Press: Oxford).
  • Crisp, M.D. & Weston, P.H. (1995) Mirbelieae. Pp. 245-282, in J.J. Doyle and M.D. Crisp (eds.) Advances in Legume Systematics Part 7: Phylogeny (Royal Botanic Gardens: Kew).
  • Crisp, M.D., Linder, H.P. & Weston, P.H. (1995) Cladistic biogeography of plants in Australia and New Guinea: congruent pattern reveals two endemic tropical tracks. Syst. Biol. 44: 457-473.
  • Weston, P.H. & Crisp, M.D. (1996) Trans-Pacific biogeographic patterns in the Proteaceae. Pp. 215-232, in A. Keast & S.E. Miller (eds.) The Origin and Evolution of Pacific Island Biotas, New Guinea to Eastern Polynesia: Patterns and Processes (SPB Academic Publishing: Amsterdam).
  • Bernhardt, P. & Weston, P.H. (1996) The pollination ecology of Persoonia (Proteaceae) in eastern Australia. Telopea 6: 775-804.
  • Savolainen, V., Fay, M.F., Albach, D.C., Backlund, A., van der Bank, M., Cameron, K.M., Johnson, S.A., Lledo, M.D., Pintaud, J.-C., Powell, M., Sheahan, M.C., Soltis, D.E., Soltis, P.S., Weston, P., Whitten, W.M., Wurdack, K.J., & Chase, M.W., (2000) Phylogeny of the eudicots: a nearly complete familial analysis based on rbcL gene sequences. Kew Bulletin 55: 257-309.
  • Weston, P.H. (2000) Process morphology from a cladistic perspective. Pp. 124-144 in R. Scotland & T. Pennington (eds.) Homology and Systematics: Coding Characters for Phylogenetic Analysis (Taylor & Francis: Basingstoke).
  • Kores, P.J., Molvray, M., Weston, P.H., Hopper, S.D., Brown, A., Cameron, K.M., and Chase, M.W (2001) A phylogenetic analysis of Diurideae (Orchidaceae) based on plastid DNA sequence data. Amer. J. Bot. 88: 1903-1914.
  • Mant, J.G., Schiestl, F.P., Peakall, R., & Weston, P.H. (2002) A phylogenetic study of pollinator conservatism among sexually deceptive orchids. Evolution 56: 888-898.
  • Thien, L.B., Sage, T.L., Jaffré, T., Bernhardt, P., Pontieri, V., Weston, P.H., Malloch, D., Azuma, H., Graham, S.W., McPherson, M.A., Rai, H.S., Sage, R.F., & Duprey, J.-L. (2003) The population structure and floral biology of Amborella trichopoda Baillon (Amborellaceae). Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 90(3): 466-490.
  • Bernhardt, P., Sage, T., Weston, P.H., Azuma, H., Lam, M., Thien, L.B., & Bruhl, J. (2003) The pollination of Trimenia moorei (Trimeniaceae): floral volatiles, insect/wind pollen vectors, and stigmatic self-incompatibility in a basal angiosperm. Annals of Botany 92: 445-458.
  • Jordan, G.J., Dillon, R.A. & Weston, P.H. (2005) Solar radiation as a factor in the evolution of scleromorphic leaf anatomy in Proteaceae. American Journal of Botany 92: 789-796.
  • Mant, J., Brown, G.R. & Weston, P.H. (2005) Opportunistic pollinator shifts among sexually deceptive orchids indicated by a phylogeny of pollinating and non-pollinating thynnine wasps (Tiphiidae). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 86: 381-395.
  • Weston, P.H. (2006) Proteaceae. Pp. 364-404 in K. Kubitzki (ed.) Families and Genera of Vascular Plants Volume IX (Springer Verlag: Berlin).
  • Weston, P.H. & Barker, N.P. (2006) A New Suprageneric Classification of the Proteaceae, with an Annotated Checklist of Genera. Telopea 11(3): 314-344.
  • Barker, N.P., Weston, P.H., Rutschmann, F. & Sauquet, H. (2007) Molecular dating of the 'Gondwanan' plant family Proteaceae is only partially congruent with the timing of Gondwanan break-up. Journal of Biogeography 34: 2012-2027.
  • Jordan, G.J. Weston, P.H., Carpenter, R.J., Dillon, R.A. & Brodribb, T.J. (2008) The evolutionary relations of sunken, covered, and encrypted stomata to dry habitats in Proteaceae. American Journal of Botany 95:521-530.
  • Mast, A.R., Crystal L. Willis, C.L., Jones, E.H., Downs, K.M., & Weston, P.H. (2008) A smaller Macadamia from a more vagile tribe: Inference of phylogenetic relationships and divergence times in Macadamia and relatives (tribe Macadamieae; Proteaceae). American Journal of Botany 95: 843-870.

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