Oud Evolution

Alkhadra said:

Assalamu Alaykm and hello everyone! Wanted to share a little something I put together. The Evolutionary Oud Tree!

I've posted it on the Al Hashimi blog in three separate parts, namely:
Part 1 - The Methodology <Click Here>
Part 2 - The Results <Click Here>
Part 3 - The Gyrinops Schism <Click Here>

You can click the links above to check out the full write-ups if you want to have a more in depth look regarding the processes that went on behind the scenes to gather the findings.

Behold, the Evolutionary Oud Tree:

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Please feel free to chime in here on any opinion or idea you'd might have! I'd love to hear all your thoughts.

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The light hearted tone that @Alkhadra employs here, is in stark contrast to the seriousness of this work.

Al Hashimi do not just want to sell pretty Oud. We also want to be thought leaders and contribute to the understanding of agarwood. This in-depth exercise is just one of the things we have been looking into and of course, eventually this will translate into innovative and superior products.

These blog entries were posted a while back, but in keeping with our habit, they were not widely publicised or marketed. Those who know about Oud including a very well respected and known vendor have confirmed the accuracy of the conclusions in the study. So much so that this vendor asked how on earth, @Alkhadra could have known about links between Agarwood species and in a comprehensive manner, when he had spent years on the ground, picking this knowledge up from first hand experience with the woods.

Anyone who seriously wants to learn more about the expensive products they buy should take some time to read the blogs. They are very informative and a masterful insight into Oud.

Well done @Alkhadra ... I remember you giving me a quick tutorial on Agarwood species, particularly in relation to Aquilaria cumungiana.

That’s quite a project! How does your classification scheme relate to those published by other labs / scientists? This has to be / have been an active area of research I assume. I wonder what characteristics were used to create the genus Gyrinops? It is based on phenetic classification?

Mr.P said:

That’s quite a project! How does your classification scheme relate to those published by other labs / scientists? This has to be / have been an active area of research I assume. I wonder what characteristics were used to create the genus Gyrinops? It is based on phenetic classification?

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Hey there! For the most part, the results are pretty similar in terms of how each species is related to one another. The clad system/scheme you see in the tree is something I've developed on my own based on genetic similarities along with geographic regions, hence why Gyrinops Walla and A. Khasiana aren't cladded.

Gyrinops are definitely characterized based on phenetic similarities, namely the number of stamens, along with the color of the fruit. I've mentioned the following in the Gyrniops Schism blog post theorizing the possible scenarios regarding the origins of species under the Gyrinops tribe:

Theory 1 (Isolated Allopatric Speciation from Proto-Gyrinops, Hybridized with Primitive Aquilaria):

It could very well be that a primitive form of Gyrinops hybridized with primitive Aquilaria in the region, causing more gene exchange between what was later to become the Malaccensis Clad and the Neo-Gyrinops Clad, making the Neo-Gyrinops Clad also somewhat a distant descendant of the Proto-Gyrinops Clad. After all, hybridization between diverging species does occur, and can end up with a newly formed species being the genetic descendant of different clads of the evolutionary tree.

Theory 2 (Isolated Speciation from the Malaccensis Clad)

The Neo-Gyrinops clad is actually not a genetic descendant of the Proto-Gyrinops Clad, but simply underwent a similar evolutionary path that ended up with achieving a similar phenotype. This can be proved by isolating which genes express the phenotype. If their phenotypes are the product of different genotypes, then Gyrinops can definitely be said to merely be an extension of the Aquilaria tribe.

Thanks for linking to the study, very interesting.
Why did you rework the data BTW?
Chiefly to try and place G. Ledermannii, A. Khasiana and A. Filaria?

powdernose said:

Thanks for linking to the study, very interesting.
Why did you rework the data BTW?

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I dislike psuedo-science, and there's a lot of it going on in Oud. People thinking that distantly related species can mate and produce hybrids without conclusive evidence. Yet they've stated it as a fact. Cool

If your professor taught you a math problem, wouldn't you go rework it at home to make sure you understand? It's called doing your homework What I'm doing here is laying the groundwork for future projects. While my results do conclude with what the results of the study shows, I can understand what each piece of data means in order to construct reasonable arguments in the future regarding the nature of Oud.


The reason I did end up posting the study was due to the interesting findings regarding certain species, especially those under the Gyrinops label.

powdernose said:

Chiefly to try and place G. Ledermannii, A. Khasiana and A. Filaria?

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To some extent, yes.

G. ledermannii, A. khasiana, and A. filaria are pretty important Oud producing species. For the longest time some people suspected A. filaria being some form of proto-oud, yet in my mind I've always placed it closer to the hirta-beccariana spectrum.

Alkhadra said:

If your professor taught you a math problem, wouldn't you go rework it at home to make sure you understand? It's called doing your homework

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I think we have different levels of enthusiasm for homework.
But I do understand stepping through the process by one's self to get a better understanding.

Alkhadra said:

I dislike psuedo-science, and there's a lot of it going on in Oud. People thinking that distantly related species can mate and produce hybrids without conclusive evidence. Yet they've stated it as a fact. Cool

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Indeed.
I missed that assertion though, care to link to it,
or just PM the info if you like,
because another thing that is prevalent in oud is pussyfooting about certain subjects

Alkhadra said:

The reason I did end up posting the study was due to the interesting findings regarding certain species, especially those under the Gyrinops label.

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Yes, it was interesting, and reading from the study it seems it has been previously proposed that ''Gyrinops should be synonymized with Aquilaria''

Alkhadra said:

G. ledermannii, A. khasiana, and A. filaria are pretty important Oud producing species. For the longest time some people suspected A. filaria being some form of proto-oud, yet in my mind I've always placed it closer to the hirta-beccariana spectrum.

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But surely more data is required.

If anyone is looking to contextualise plant DNA data from the study, I found the following articles helpful in getting a better grasp of things:

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2015.0338

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0035071#pone.0035071.s001

powdernose said:

Indeed.
I missed that assertion though, care to link to it,
or just PM the info if you like,
because another thing that is prevalent in oud is pussyfooting about certain subjects
.

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Definitely pussyfooting here (for lack of a better term )

No links or anything, it was more a long the lines of people making claims behind the scenes, regarding the relationships between different Oud producing species. They didn't read the studies, they didn't do their "homework" or produce any viable source of work to back their claims. As to who those people are, well what's said in private should remain in private. I'm not saying they're bad people. They're definitely good willed folk, their only fault was not understanding and being overly excited with finding the truth, whilst taking short cuts to get to that truth.

powdernose said:

But surely more data is required.

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A lot more data. This is an on-going study. New findings arise everyday, and we need numerous results on those three species to cross check them against one another, to ensure that proper species identification occured.

I have a couple of on-going personal studies relating to Oud and Musk, and they're proving to be quite expensive. Maybe you can open up your wallet for me, I'll do the homework (the part that you aren't so enthusiastic about) and you can do the critic and the crosschecking (the part I'd too be biased to do myself) How does that sound?

Alkhadra said:

A lot more data. This is an on-going study. New findings arise everyday, and we need numerous results on those three species to cross check them against one another, to ensure that proper species identification occured.

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Ideally the complete chloroplast genomes.

Alkhadra said:

I have a couple of on-going personal studies relating to Oud and Musk, and they're proving to be quite expensive. Maybe you can open up your wallet for me, I'll do the homework (the part that you aren't so enthusiastic about) and you can do the critic and the crosschecking (the part I'd too be biased to do myself) How does that sound?

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I often wonder where I'd be with a bigger wallet
What are you studying?

Alkhadra said:

Assalamu Alaykm and hello everyone! Wanted to share a little something I put together. The Evolutionary Oud Tree!

I've posted it on the Al Hashimi blog in three separate parts, namely:
Part 1 - The Methodology <Click Here>
Part 2 - The Results <Click Here>
Part 3 - The Gyrinops Schism <Click Here>

You can click the links above to check out the full write-ups if you want to have a more in depth look regarding the processes that went on behind the scenes to gather the findings.

Behold, the Evolutionary Oud Tree:

View attachment 7375

Please feel free to chime in here on any opinion or idea you'd might have! I'd love to hear all your thoughts.

Click to expand...

Very informative thanks for sharing.