Evaluating the monophyly of Mammillaria series Supertextae (Cactaceae)

Abstract

Mammillaria (Cactaceae) taxonomy has been historically problematic due to the morphological variability and sympatry of the species. This has led to several proposals for infrageneric classification, including subgeneric, section and series categories. Mammillaria ser. Supertextae is one of 15 series and is made up of a variable set of species that are mainly distributed in southern Mexico and Central America. However, the phylogenetic relationships within M. ser. Supertextae and its relationship to other Mammillaria taxa are far from fully understood. Here we attempt to elucidate these relationships using complete terminal sampling and newly obtained chloroplast marker sequences and comparing them to Mammillaria species sequences from GenBank. Our phylogenetic analyses showed that M. ser. Supertextae comprises a well-supported monophyletic group that diverged approximately 2.1 Mya and has M. ser. Polyacanthae as its sister group; however, relationships within M. ser. Supertextae remain unresolved. The topology obtained within M. ser. Supertextae must also be interpreted under the distribution shared by these taxa, but it is difficult to differentiate ancestral polymorphisms from possible introgression, given the short time elapsed and the markers used. Our results show that the infrageneric units of M. haageana and M. albilanata can be considered independent evolutionary units. We also suggest that the relationship between M. haageana and M. albilanata is convoluted because their distribution overlaps (mainly towards southern Mexico), with genetic differences that possibly indicate they represent more than two taxonomic entities. One possible explanation is that there could still be gene flow between these taxa, and we might be witnessing an ongoing speciation process.

Two chloroplast genomes with reduced inverted repeat regions in Mammillaria series Stylothelae (Cactaceae)

“…Similar results have been reported in recent, more comprehensive studies, indicating the need for further research (Chincoya et al 2023). Our results agreed with the monophyly of series Supertextae, which was also identified by Cervantes et al (2021). In all three phylogenetic analyses performed with different datasets, Mammillaria bocasana and M. erythrosperma grouped as sister to the clade containing the subgenera Mammillaria and Krainzia.…”

Growth Patterns in Seedling Roots of the Pincushion Cactus Mammillaria Reveal Trends of Intra- and Inter-Specific Variation

“…What remains to be studied is how and why these root phenotypic growth patterns have originated, either driven by stochastic or adaptive evolution, and what genomic footprints these processes have left behind. In this sense, we have started these studies at the genetic and phenotypic level (Hinojosa-Alvarez et al, 2020;Cervantes et al, 2021), which complement other studies on the population genetics and genomic constitution of Mammillaria species (Solórzano et al, 2014(Solórzano et al, , 2019Solórzano and Dávila, 2015;Chincoya et al, 2020). Our results indicate that there is ample variation within a single species, M. haageana, which is also present in a range of environments, allowing us to further study the associations between root phenotypes and their environmental conditions of origin.…”

“…Supertextae species we could only obtain 7 species, and they were abbreviated as follow: M. albilanata (M. alb), M. crucigera (M. cru), M. dixanthocentron (M. dix), M. flavicentra (M. fla), M. huitzilopochtli (M. hui), and M. supertexta (M. sup). As for the M. haageana accessions, seeds were collected from the wild in 2018 (Figure 1A), assigned accession numbers according to our previous work (Cervantes et al, 2021), and their corresponding plants were deposited in the Jardín Botánico (Instituto de Biología, UNAM) collection (collection license SGPA/DGGFS/712/3690/10). For M. haageana subspecies sanangelensis (M. h. san) seeds were obtained from the Adoption Center Conservation Program for Endangered Species at Jardín Botánico (Instituto de Biología, UNAM).…”

“…To characterize the natural variation in developmental dynamics in a Mammillaria species, we chose M. haageana, a widely distributed species along the Mexican neovolcanic axis (Hunt et al, 2006;Arias et al, 2012), whose diversity we are currently characterizing (Cervantes et al, 2021), and we have established a collection of natural accessions at the Jardín Botánico (Instituto de Biología, UNAM). Using seeds from the wild, first we performed germination in aseptic conditions in order to study the variation in root architecture in natural accessions under a controlled environment.…”

Characterizing the chloroplast genome of Mammillaria elongata DC. 1828 in the Cactaceae family and unveiling its phylogenetic affinities within the genus Mammillaria

“…have advanced our understanding by constructing a detailed phylogenetic tree, thereby refining the infrageneric classifications, encompassing subgeneric, sectional, and series categorizations (Cervantes et al. 2021 ). Among this remarkable biodiversity, the Mammillaria genus stands out with almost 200 universally accepted taxa, marking it as the genus with the greatest number of species ( https://cactiguide.com/cactus/?genus=Mammillaria ).…”