Abstract
BackgroundThe chloroplastic trnL intron and the nuclear internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region were sequenced for 11 Nepenthes species recorded in Peninsular Malaysia to examine their phylogenetic relationship and to evaluate the usage of trnL intron and ITS sequences for phylogenetic reconstruction of this genus.ResultsPhylogeny reconstruction was carried out using neighbor-joining, maximum parsimony and Bayesian analyses. All the trees revealed two major clusters, a lowland group consisting of N. ampullaria, N. mirabilis, N. gracilis and N. rafflesiana, and another containing both intermediately distributed species (N. albomarginata and N. benstonei) and four highland species (N. sanguinea, N. macfarlanei, N. ramispina and N. alba).ConclusionsThe trnL intron and ITS sequences proved to provide phylogenetic informative characters for deriving a phylogeny of Nepenthes species in Peninsular Malaysia. To our knowledge, this is the first molecular phylogenetic study of Nepenthes species occurring along an altitudinal gradient in Peninsular Malaysia.
Highlights
The chloroplastic trnL intron and the nuclear internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region were sequenced for 11 Nepenthes species recorded in Peninsular Malaysia to examine their phylogenetic relationship and to evaluate the usage of trnL intron and ITS sequences for phylogenetic reconstruction of this genus
We report here the phylogeographics of the Nepenthes species found in Peninsular Malaysia based on the DNA sequence data
The trnL intron and ITS sequence data utilised in this work provided informative characters for the molecular phylogenetic inference of Nepenthes species in Peninsular Malaysia
Summary
The chloroplastic trnL intron and the nuclear internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region were sequenced for 11 Nepenthes species recorded in Peninsular Malaysia to examine their phylogenetic relationship and to evaluate the usage of trnL intron and ITS sequences for phylogenetic reconstruction of this genus. The endemic species of Nepenthes occur throughout Southeast Asia, in the Sunda region, which includes Borneo, Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, Java and some of the southern islands of the Philippines [2]. The Nepenthes flora in Peninsular Malaysia is relatively poor with only 11 species presently recorded Clarke [2] reported only ten species of Nepenthes in Peninsular Malaysia, classifying N. alba as a heterotypic synonym of N. gracillima. Four of these species are restricted to montane habitats (N. macfarlanei, N. gracillima, N. sanguinea, N. ramispina), two species are found mainly on low hills (N. albomarginata and N. benstonei) and another four are lowland species
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