Multilocus phylogeny reconstruction: New insights into the evolutionary history of the genus Petunia

Contribution of WUSCHEL-related homeobox (WOX) genes to identify the phylogenetic relationships among Petunia species

“…Petunia bajeensis , a species that occurs just in lowlands, was the sister group of the highland species (Figure 1B), confirming previous findings of phylogenies based on combined nuclear and plastid markers (Reck-Kortmann et al , 2014). However, such relationships were not observed in phylogenies obtained through plastid sequence analysis (Lorenz-Lemke et al , 2010) or plastid RFLP (Ando et al , 2005a), in which P. bajeensis is placed in the lowland group of species, or those based only on nuclear sequences (Chen et al , 2007; Kriedt et al , 2014), in which P. bajeensis is placed in the highland group, with different sister species.…”

“…integrifolia under the latter taxa, justifying this choice with the association of several characteristics to the different environments where these plants grow. Previous evolutionary approaches (Longo et al , 2014; Reck-Kortmann et al , 2014; Ramos-Fregonezi et al , 2015) have supported the suggestions of Stehmann and Bohs (2007) and Stehmann et al (2009), but the genetic variation found in WOX genes reinforces the proposition of Ando et al (2005a,b), this indicating the need for more studies including these different morphologies.…”

“…In Petunia , two main clades associated with corolla tube length are consistently obtained in molecular marker-based phylogenies (Chen et al , 2007; Kriedt et al , 2014; Reck-Kortmann et al , 2014), despite the low support in internal branches and uncertainty of some terminal positions. Flower morphology directly correlates with pollinator shift and has impacted Petunia diversification (Fregonezi et al , 2013).…”

“…Despite that P. guarapuavensis and P. scheideana share several morphological traits and have a similar geographic distribution (Figure 1A), they occupy different branches in molecular biology-based analyses (Chen et al , 2007; Lorenz-Lemke et al , 2010; Reck-Kortmann et al , 2014). Ando et al (2005b) suggested as valid the taxa P. integrifolia subsp.…”

Can the reproductive system of a rare and narrowly endemic plant species explain its high genetic diversity?

“…Despite this, it is not included on the Brazilian red list of plant species. Within the phylogeny of the genus, the species belongs to a clade characterised by long corolla tubes (Reck-Kortmann et al 2014). It can be subdivided into two different genetic lineages, which correspond to its sites of occurrence (lineage 1, from Pedra do Segredo -see below, and lineage 2, from a roadside location approximately 20 km away; Turchetto et al 2016).…”