Pinzon et al. 2015 (Conference Paper) Tillandsia

Phylogeny of Tillandsia subg. Tillandsia (Tillandsioideae) II: Evidence from nuclear DNA regions

Author(s):—Juan P. Pinzón, Walter Till, Ivón Ramírez-Morillo, Germán Carnevali, L. Hromadnik & Michael Barfuss in Benko-Iseppon, A.M.; Alves, M. & Louzada, R. (2015) An overview and abstracts of the First World Congress on Bromeliaceae Evolution. Rodriguésia 66(2): A1-A66.

Publication:— (2015).

Abstract:—Previous results from plastid DNA regions showed that Tillandsia subg. Tillandsia is not monophyletic, with its characteristics (exserted stamens and style) appearing at least twice in the course of evolution of genus Tillandsia. Moreover, some of the species of Tillandsia subg. Allardtia were nested within the main clade of the subgenus Tillandsia s. str. Some internal structure was evident, standing out the Mexican Clade, the T. utriculata clade, the T. limbata clade, the T. circinnatioides clade and the Core Group I Clade. However, species-level relationships were far from being resolved; especially within the Core Group I Clade, which showed a large polytomy of more than 50 species. To test the hypothesis that rose from plastid DNA and to try to get more internal phylogenetic structure, we explored four nuclear DNA regions from which we selectedPhyC (Phytochrome C gene) and PRK (Phosphoribulokinase exons 2?5) and performed Bayesian inference analyses, Maximum Parsomony analyses and Bootstrap resampling to test clade support. The genus Tillandsia resulted as paraphyletic, with Racinaea and some species of Vriesea inserted. In contrast with plastid DNA results, deep relationships of Tillandsia were not resolved, and the status of subgenus Tillandsia was not possible to establish. However, some previously internal clades of subgenus Tillandsia s. str. were confirmed and some other unknown clades were recovered: T. utriculata and the T. limbata clades form a monophyleticgroup, including T. fuchsii and T. filifolia; some lytophytic large species represented by T. parryi were groupedtogether. The Core Group I Clade was also obtained although with low support. Nevertheless, some species appeared forming clades: the neotenic-like Tillandsia kammii and T. hondurensis, as well as T. plagiotropicaand T. velutina; the grass-like T. remota and T. pseudosetacea (with Allardtia-like flowers); the silver leaved T. weberi and T. circinnatioides and T. pueblensis-T. schatzlii were also grouped together. According to these results it can be predicted that the combination of plastid and nuclear DNA evidence should help to better understand the phylogeny and evolution of subgenus Tillandsia, the former resolving the deeper clades and the latter helping to elucidate more species-level relationships.

Keywords:—Phylogeny; Tillandsia; Nuclear DNA.