Phylogeny of Prosopis (Leguminosae) as shown by morphological and biochemical evidence

Abstract

Prosopis L. is a rather primitive genus within the Leguminosae-Mimosoideae. This genus has been divided into five sections on the basis especially of the vegetative diversification of the spines. Three of the sections, Algarobia, Monilicarpa and Strombocarpa, are distributed in America. In order to elucidate systematic relationships between the American sections of Prosopis, a morphological and biochemical phylogeny were obtained. Twenty-two morphological characters were scored for 27 species of Prosopis and the outgroup taxon following polyacrilamide gel electrophoresis of seed storage proteins. The results obtained clearly prove that the secction Strombocarpa is a natural taxon. The section Algarobia, on the other hand, seems to comprise an artificial grouping of species. Members of the series Denudantes appear isolated from the remaining species, therefore this taxon should be treated as a new section within Prosopis. The section Algarobia should be circumscribed to series Chilenses, Ruscifoliae and Pallidae, which are always united in a monophyletic clade. Finally, no evidence was found to confirm the existence of the section Monilicarpa.

Legume phylogeny and classification in the 21st century: Progress, prospects and lessons for other species–rich clades

“…For example, Dichrostachys and allies (Luckow, 1995, and in prep. ;Luckow & al., 2005), the Pithecellobium group (Grimes, 1995); New World Ingeae (Barneby & Grimes, 1996, 1997Barneby, 1998), Desmanthus (Luckow, 1993); Parkia (Luckow & Hopkins, 1995); Acacia (Chappill & Maslin, 1995;Grimes, 1995;Rico Arce & Banks, 2000); Leucaena (Hughes, 1998); Prosopis (Burghardt & Espert, 2007); Caesalpinioideae (Herendeen & al., 2003a); resin-producing Detarieae (Fougère-Danezan & al., 2010), Aphanocalyx-BikiniaTetraberlinia (Wieringa & Gervais, 2003); Swartzieae and Sophoreae (Herendeen, 1995); the Dalbergioid clade ); Diocleinae (Queiroz & al., 2003); Acosmium s.l. (Rodrigues & Tozzi, 2007).…”

“…Recent phylogenetic studies of genera include Hoffmannseggia (Simpson & Ulibarri, 2006); Phaseolus (DelgadoSalinas & al., 2006); Paloue and related genera (Redden & Herendeen, 2006); Phyllolobium Fisch. (Zhang & Podlech, 2006); Lotus L. (Degtjareva & al., 2006(Degtjareva & al., , 2008; Piptadenia (Jobson & Luckow, 2007); Prosopis (Burghardt & Espert, 2007;Catalano & al., 2008); Paraserianthes I.C. Nielsen ; Platymiscium Vogel (Saslis- Lagoudakis & al., 2008); Mimosa (Bessega & al., 2008;Simon & al., 2011;Bessega & Fortunato, 2011); Bauhinia s.l.…”

Spatial, Ontogenetic, and Sexual Effects on the Diet of a Teiid Lizard in Arid South America

“…Interestingly, the herbivorous teiid C. murinus, on Bonaire, generally avoids leaves of Prosopis juliflora (Dearing and Schall, 1992), possibly because of their high saponin content (Dearing and Schall, 1992). Prosopis juliflora is closely related to P. pallida (Harris et al, 2003;Burghardt and Espert, 2007), but little is known about the presence and abundance of saponin and other secondary metabolites in P. pallida. Prosopis pallida is a nitrogen fixing tree species (Ramírez-Orduñ a et al, 2005), and its leaves are rich in nitrogen (concentration of 3.24 6 0.32%, compared with only 1.50 6 0.30% for the sympatric Capparis scabrida; Havik, 2010).…”

RAPD and microsatellite transferability studies in selected species of Prosopis (section Algarobia) with emphasis on Prosopis juliflora and P. pallida

“…Studies involving pollen grain morphology (Caccavari De Filice 1972) and foliar architecture (Martinez 1984) and seed protein electrophoresis (Burghardt and Palacios 1997) have clearly differentiated the species of both sections. Moreover morphological and biochemical data involving seven species from Strombocarpa suggest that it constitutes a natural taxon (Burghardt and Espert 2007), unlike Algarobia. Isozyme and amino acid analysis also show that the genetic and morphological differences are high among species in section Strombocarpa compared to Algarobia (Carman et al 1974;Saidman et al 1996).…”

“…Species of section Algarobia are mostly selfincompatible and outcross (Solbrig and Cantino 1975;Simpson 1977), although a small percentage of selfing is reported (Bessega et al 2000). Enzyme and molecular marker studies have concluded that section Algarobia is not a natural group (Bessega et al 2005;Burghardt and Espert 2007). Although isozyme analysis proved to be useful, the enzymatic expression is restricted to specific developmental stages or tissues influenced by the environment (Solbrig and Bawa 1975;Whitmore and Bragg 1979;Saidman and Vilardi 1987).…”