This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Madison researchers recognize a new species of baobab tree, Adansonia bozy, unique to Madagascar, according to a study published in the journal Taxon. Previously, members of A. bozy were classified within a different species of Malagasy baobab, Adansonia za.
While the species look similar, careful genetic analysis revealed that the northern populations of A. za are more closely related to other northern Malagasy baobab species. This discovery could have implications for conservation efforts for the endangered trees. Baobabs are charismatic trees that grow in Australia, continental Africa and Madagascar.
Before this paper, there were eight recognized species of baobabs: one in Australia, one in continental Africa and six in Madagascar. "It's surprising that we're still answering basic biological questions about baobabs, in terms of how many species actually exist on the landscape," says lead author Nisa Karimi, who worked on the project for her Ph.D. in the former Department of Botany. She collaborated with UW–Madison co-author David Baum and researchers from the Missouri Botanical Garden and Iowa State University.
Baum, who has been studying baobabs for more than 40 years, explains that while the threshold for defining a new plant species is complicated, in the case of A. bozy, the genetic data they collected made it crystal clear. "Any group that we choose to recognize in a taxonomy should be composed of organisms that are more closely related to each other than to anything outside the group," says Baum. To collect the tissue samples necessary to analyze the baobab's genetics, Karimi had to navigate to remote parts of Madagascar and locate the trees.
Since some species of baobabs in Madagascar can look similar, Karimi says it's sometimes impossible to identify the species by looking at its leaves alone. "To know what you're looking at, you have to see them in flower," Karimi says. But that's easier said than done.
Each species flowers for about one month, and the blooms only open after dusk—way up in the branches, sometimes more than 100 feet above the ground (30 meters). Timing is crucial, as is training to use the complicated climbing rig required to scale the massive trunks and rappel back down. After collecting leaf samples, Karimi brought them back to Wisconsin to be ground up for extraction.
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