Abstract
The assignment of accurate species names is crucial, especially for those with confirmed agronomic potential such as highland papayas. The use of additional methodologies and data sets is recommended to establish well-supported boundaries among species of Vasconcellea. Accordingly, six chloroplast (trnL-trnF, rpl20-rps12, psbA-trnH intergenic spacers, matK and rbcL genes) and nuclear (ITS) markers were used to delimit species in the genus Vasconcellea using phylogeny and four DNA-based methods. Our results demonstrated congruence among different methodologies applied in this integrative study (i.e., morphology, multilocus phylogeny, genetic distance, coalescence methods). Genetic distance (ABGD, SPN), a coalescence method (BPP), and the multilocus phylogeny supported 22-25 different species of Vasconcellea, including the following five new species from northern Peru: V. badilloi sp. nov., V. carvalhoae sp. nov., V. chachapoyensis sp. nov., V. pentalobis sp. nov., and V. peruviensis sp. nov. Genetic markers that gave better resolution for distinguishing species were ITS and trnL-trnF. Phylogenetic diversity and DNA-species delimitation methods could be used to discover taxa within traditionally defined species.
Highlights
The family Caricaceae is composed of six genera containing 35 species that are distributed from southern Mexico to northern Chile [1, 2]
Phylogenetic trees obtained from the Maximum likelihood (ML) and Bayesian inference (BI) analyses confirmed the monophyly of the genus Vasconcellea and its sister relationship to the genus Jacaratia (Fig 2)
Our results demonstrated that the congruence among different methodologies applied in this integrative study are more likely to prove reliably supported species boundaries
Summary
The family Caricaceae is composed of six genera containing 35 species that are distributed from southern Mexico to northern Chile [1, 2]. Two of these genera, namely Carica L. and Horovitzia Badillo are monospecific. The second one comprises seven species distributed along South America [2]. The latter one encompasses three species distributed along Pacific Coast from northern Mexico to El Salvador [5]. The remaining genus, namely Vasconcellea Saint-Hilaire, is the largest one in this family encompassing 20 species and 1 hibrid (V. x heibornii) distributed mainly from Ecuador to Peru [3, 6]
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