Relationships among Calibrachoa, Fabiana and Petunia (Petunieae tribe, Solanaceae) and a new generic placement of Argentinean endemic Petunia patagonica

Abstract

Calibrachoa Cerv., Fabiana Ruiz & Pav., and Petunia Juss. form a clade within tribe Petunieae (Solanaceae). Phylogenetic studies of Petunieae, either as part of a family-wide analysis or focusing on the genera Calibrachoa and Petunia, have either left Fabiana unsampled or included only a single species. These studies have found conflicting relationships among the three genera with all three possible topologies obtained. Petunia patagonica (Speg.) Millán, originally described in the genus Nierembergia Ruiz & Pav., is morphologically distinct within Petunia and geographically disjunct from other members of the genus. For the first time, in this study we include multiple species of Fabiana, Calibrachoa, and Petunia, including P. patagonica. Using three chloroplast DNA regions and the nuclear gene GBSSI, or “waxy,” our results provide strong support for a sister group relationship between Calibrachoa and Fabiana and for the placement of P. patagonica within Fabiana. Since there is already a species Fabiana patagonica Speg., we provide the new name Fabiana australis Alaria nom. nov. to replace Petunia patagonica.

Nuclear phylogeny and insights into whole-genome duplications and reproductive development of Solanaceae plants

“…(2016) . Within Petunieae/Petunioideae, Nierembergia and Brunfelsia occupy two successive sister branches of a previously found clade ([ Calibrachoa , Fabiana ], Petunia ) ( Olmstead et al., 2008 ; Alaria et al., 2022 ; Wheeler et al., 2022 ). Clade V with two tribes (Nicotianeae and Anthocercideae) is consistent with previous analyses ( Olmstead et al., 2008 ).…”

Evolutionary walks through flower color space driven by gene expression in Petunia and allies (Petunieae)

“…We previously followed the approach of (Walker et al 2018) to reconstruct the species tree for the Petunieae clade using 3,672 ortholog clusters identified from the original de novo transcriptome assemblies as in Wheeler et al (2022). However, for the current study, we added an additional species; Fabiana australis (4-letter code = PEPA), which has recently been renamed from Petunia patagonica (Alaria et al 2022). To add F. australis into the analysis we started with the ortholog clusters from the previous publication (downloadable from https://osf.io/b7gcp/).…”

Evolutionary walks through flower colour space driven by gene expression inPetuniaand allies (Petunieae)

“…We previously followed the approach of Walker et al [39] to reconstruct the species tree for the Petunieae clade using 3672 orthologue clusters identified from the original de novo transcriptome assemblies as in [35]. However, for the current study, we added an additional species; Fabiana australis (four-letter code= PEPA), which has recently been renamed from Petunia patagonica [40]. To add F. australis into the analysis we started with the orthologue clusters from the previous publication (downloadable from https://osf.io/b7gcp/).…”