First molecular phylogenetic insights into the evolution of Eriocaulon (Eriocaulaceae, Poales)

Isabel Larridon,Yuxi Liang,Attila Mesterházy,John A N Parnell,Nobuyuki Tanaka,Shuichiro Tagane,Norio Tanaka,Stephan W Gale,Kohtaroh Shutoh,Richard W Jobson,Jie Li,Phetlasy Souladeth,Amornrat Prajaksood,S M Phillips ,Seong-Hyun Cho,A Muthama Muasya,Mark F Newman,Anders S Barfod,Okihito Yano,Young Dong Kim ,I Yu

doi:10.1007/s10265-019-01129-3

Abstract

Eriocaulon is a genus of c. 470 aquatic and wetland species of the monocot plant family Eriocaulaceae. It is widely distributed in Africa, Asia and America, with centres of species richness in the tropics. Most species of Eriocaulon grow in wetlands although some inhabit shallow rivers and streams with an apparent adaptive morphology of elongated submerged stems. In a previous molecular phylogenetic hypothesis, Eriocaulon was recovered as sister of the African endemic genus Mesanthemum. Several regional infrageneric classifications have been proposed for Eriocaulon. This study aims to critically assess the existing infrageneric classifications through phylogenetic reconstruction of infrageneric relationships, based on DNA sequence data of four chloroplast markers and one nuclear marker. There is little congruence between our molecular results and previous morphology-based infrageneric classifications. However, some similarities can be found, including Fyson’s sect. Leucantherae and Zhang’s sect. Apoda. Further phylogenetic studies, particularly focusing on less well sampled regions such as the Neotropics, will help provide a more global overview of the relationships in Eriocaulon and may enable suggesting the first global infrageneric classification.

Highlights

Eriocaulon L., commonly known as pipeworts, is a cosmopolitan genus of ephemeral and perennial aquatic and wetland plants of the Eriocaulaceae family (Poales)
We reconstructed the phylogenetic history of Eriocaulon using both ptDNA and PHYC datasets with the aim of assessing the existing regional infrageneric classifications (Table S1)
Our taxon sampling is not sufficiently comprehensive to cover Mueller’s (1859) sectional classification for Australian species of Eriocaulon, selected species listed in the infrageneric classifications proposed by Fyson (1919, 1921, 1922), Ma (1991, 1997), Ansari and Balakrishnan (1994, 2009) and Zhang (1999) were sampled (Table S1, S2)

Summary

Introduction

Eriocaulon L., commonly known as pipeworts, is a cosmopolitan genus of ephemeral and perennial aquatic and wetland plants of the Eriocaulaceae family (Poales). Species of Eriocaulon primarily grow in seasonal or permanent wetlands while some inhabit shallow rivers and streams with an apparent adaptive morphology of elongated submerged stems. Two subfamilies are recognised in Eriocaulaceae, i.e. Eriocauloideae with. Extended author information available on the last page of the article diplostemonous flowers and glandular petals, and Paepalanthoideae with isostemonous flowers and eglandular petals (Giulietti et al 2012; Ruhland 1903). Together with the African genus Mesanthemum Körn., which was recently revised by Liang et al (2019), Eriocaulon is placed in subfamily Eriocauloideae. Paepalanthoideae is largely restricted to the Americas

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