9 - Molecular Phylogeny of Palms

Abstract

This chapter discusses the use of DNA sequence variations in rearranging to clarify the taxonomic relationship of palms. A taxon (plural—taxa) is any group of organisms that is given a formal taxonomic name. A taxon is called monophyletic if it includes a group of organisms descending from a single ancestor or a common ancestor. If some of the members of the taxa do not share a common ancestor, then it is known as paraphyletic. A polyphyletic taxon is one whose members do not all have a common ancestor. Arecaceae, the palm family, is recognized as a monophyletic group among plants. The Arecaceae family is located within the commelinid clade of the monocotyledons group of plants. Arecoideae, Calamoideae, Ceroxyloideae, Coryphoideae, and Nypoideae are the five subfamilies of the palm family. Presently, the relationship among the 183 genera and 2364 species of these five subfamilies is not completely resolved. A growing knowledge on the subject has made inroads toward achieving the objective. In estimating the phylogenetic structure of a taxon, the strength of DNA markers is measured by the number of parsimony informative (PI) sites or characters.