Cyperaceae in Africa - Biogeography, Evolution and Taxonomic revision with focus on <i>Ficinia </i>Schrad.

The Cyperaceae comprises 2 subfamilies, 95 genera, and 5,687 species. They are important for ethnobotany, the economy, and environmental benefits, including food, habitat for wild species, and soil stabilisation3,4. The genus Ficinia (Cyperaceae) comprises 96 species, with its centre of diversity in the Greater Cape Floristic Region5. At the genus level, one in six currently recognised Ficinia species has a validly published epithet in Isolepis R.Br.; difficulties in differentiating Ficinia from related genera have persisted over the last 200 years. Formal taxonomic revisions of some members of the genus have been done1,2; however, a complete generic revision has yet to be completed. The research aims to analyse phylogenetic patterns of African Cyperaceae, revise the genus taxonomy, and infer evolutionary patterns in Ficinia. To achieve the first aim, GBIF occurrence data were retrieved and cleaned to create a sparse community matrix. The compositional turnover was analysed using the canaper package in R for biogeographic regionalisation. The second aim was achieved by examining voucher specimens from BOL, CT, SAM, JRAU, J, TRV, K, NBG, P, and PRE, as well as by conducting multiple field collections at target sites. Morphological and phylogenomic analyses were conducted on all taxa under review. The last aim was achieved by integrating diagnostic traits with the phylogenomic analyses completed in the second aim to infer patterns of speciation and ancestral state reconstruction in the genus and thereby confirm the infrageneric classification of Ficinia. This has resolved the taxonomic challenges in the subtribe Ficiniinae. The datasets submitted here represent the cleaned 144,001 occurrence records of 643 species occurring in Africa and the dated phylogeny used for the diversity analyses. The dataset tagged as "cleaned records" consists of 60 columns. The first 49 columns represent the collection details of the species from GBIF and BOL. The latter 11 columns represent grid information from the geodetic datum used. The dated phylogeny consists of all tips in the order Poales from Elliott et al. (2024) paper published in the New Phytologist journal. The occurrence dataset was collected from 1894 to 2023 on sedges in Africa and adjacent oceanic islands. The sequences used for the phylogeny were retrieved from GenBank between 2021 and 2023. Lastly, the folder tagged "Phylogenomic trees" consists of four newick tree files analysed using IQTree and ASTRAL-III software. Those tree files tagged "renamed" consist of tip labels of the correct species names, while those tree files without the tag "renamed" consist of the collector details as the tip labels.