Systematic studies of Australian stipoid grasses (Austrostipa) based on micro-morphological and molecular characteristics

Abstract

Bustam BM (2010) Systematic studies of Australian stipoid grasses (Austrostipa) based on micro morphological and molecular characteristics. Biodiversitas 11: 9-14. This research is one of many studies on stipoid grasses organized by the International Stipeae Working Group (ISWG). This research tested the subgeneric classification of Austrostipa proposed by Jacobs and Everett (1996) and tested how informative the micro morphological characters used. Data were collected from herbarium specimens of 36 species (33 species of Austrostipa, two species of Hesperostipa and one species of Anemanthele) at Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. Twenty eight micro morphological characters were used. The data were collected from both adaxial and abaxial surfaces of leaves, and from the lemma epidermis using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). ISWG provided the molecular data. Parsimony analysis and a distance method (Unweighteic Pair Group with Arithmatic Mean: UPGMA) were used to analyze micro-morphological and molecular data separately. Only UPGMA analysis was used to analyze the combined data. The results support the monophyly of Austrostipa. However, there is a little support for the subgeneric classification of Austrostipa proposed by Jacobs and Everett (1996), other than for the consistent recognition of Falcatae. The characters for comparisons between genera are too homoplasious at this level and do not contain enough information for analyses at subgeneric level, a problem apparently shared with the DNA sequences.Key words: Austrostipa, stipoid grasses, micro morphological, molecular

Molecular Phylogenetics and Micromorphology of Australasian Stipeae (Poaceae, Subfamily Pooideae), and the Interrelation of Whole-Genome Duplication and Evolutionary Radiations in This Grass Tribe

“…It is rather a contribution to obtain monophyletic taxa, which can serve as reliable units addressing questions about character evolution and/or biogeography in Austrostipa, which have been barely touched upon to date. Some of our suggestions for classification are not new, having been made in previous molecular phylogenetic studies of Austrostipa, for example, the maintenance of subgenera Falcatae (Jacobs et al, 2007;Bustam, 2010Bustam, , 2012Syme et al, 2012), Longiaristatae and Lobatae (Jacobs et al, 2007;Syme et al, 2012), the broadening of subg. Austrostipa to include also subgenera Tuberculatae (Jacobs et al, 2007;Syme et al, 2012) and Eremophilae (Syme et al, 2012), but our data do not support combining subgenera Arbuscula and Bambusina, a suggestion based on their similar habit (Jacobs et al, 2007).…”

“…More recently, Romaschenko et al (2010Romaschenko et al ( , 2012 have described two major lemma epidermal patterns in the tribe: Stipa-like, also called saw-like, dominated by long fundamental cells and hooks, and Achnatherum-like, also called maize-like, dominated by short fundamental cells and paired with silica cells. Several authors have shown out that, even though LEP is relatively uniform within a genus, it may still be useful in identifying particular species as well as in delineating relationships among and between different subgenera or sections (Ortúñez and de la Fuente, 2010;Nobis, 2013;Olonova et al, 2016;Nobis et al, 2019b), but lemmas of relatively few Austrostipa species had been studied prior to Bustam's (2010;2012) work.…”

Flowering Plants. Monocots

“…175. Austrostipa S. W. L. Jacobs & J. Everett Austrostipa S. W. L.Jacobs & J. Everett, Telopea 6: 582 (1996); tax., micromorphology:Bustam (2010).…”

Awn Morphology Influences Dispersal, Microsite Selection and Burial of Australian Native Grass Diaspores

“…Thus, the efficiency of falcate awns in dispersing was significantly less than that of geniculate awns. Phylogenetic analyses have shown that these falcate-awned species fall into a distinct Austrostipa subgenus Falcatae (Bustam, 2010;Syme et al, 2012;Winterfeld et al, 2015), and may have evolved separate strategies for dispersal. We also found that awn length was positively correlated with overall burial depth, consistent with Garnier and Dajoz (2001) and Johnson and Baruch (2014).…”