Morphological Phylogenetic Analysis of Two Early-Diverging Genera of Bromelioideae (Bromeliaceae)

Abstract

Bromelia includes 66 species, grouped in three subgenera: Bromelia, Distiacanthus and Karatas. The genus is one of the earlier divergent groups within Bromelioideae, a subfamily with innumerable problems of generic delimitation. Considering that few phylogenetic studies have included more than one species of Bromelia, the objectives of this study were to carry out a phylogenetic analysis for the genus, seeking to evaluate its monophyly as well as its subgenera, and to better understand the interspecific evolutionary relationships within the genus and the intergeneric relationships within Bromelioideae. Also included in the analysis were the two species of Fernseea, a genus originally described from a species placed in Bromelia. The phylogenetic analysis was conducted with combined micro-and macromorphological data, including 39 taxa with 116 characters. As in other studies on Bromeliaceae, the clades have low statistical support and many questions regarding the relationships of the groups remain. The circumscription of Bromelia is still uncertain, due to the position of B. irwinii; Fernseea seems to emerge within this genus, as the marority-rule consensus suggests, and the infrageneric categories are debatable because they do not constitute monophyletic groups. However, Bromelia seems to be paraphyletic and, without B. irwinii, the genus can be considered monophyletic. Beginning with the premise that the most recent common ancestor of Bromelioideae appeared first in the southern Andes, Bromelia and Fernseea seems to have dispersed along three biogeographical routes. The present work is an important contribution to understand the evolution and biogeography of the Bromelioideae.

Hydraulics link leaf shape and environmental niche in terrestrial bromeliads

“…() for relationships within Orthophytum , Monteiro et al . () for relationships within Bromelia , and Cruz et al . () for relationships within Cryptanthus .…”

“…For Pitcairnia, the tree used here was based on the morphological phylogeny of Saraiva et al (2015) and included 56 terminal taxa. For the terrestrial Bromelioideae, a composite tree was produced based on molecular phylogenetic analyses, using information from Givnish et al (2011) and Silvestro et al (2014) for intergeneric relationships, from Louzada et al (2014) for relationships within Orthophytum, Monteiro et al (2015) for relationships within Bromelia, and Cruz et al (2017) for relationships within Cryptanthus. It included 111 terminal taxa including a tip for the Core Bromelioideae.…”

ASPECTOS ETNOBOTÁNICOS, NUTRICIONALES Y ACTIVIDAD BIOLÓGICA DE EXTRACTOS DE FRUTOS DEL GÉNERO Bromelia

“…Asimismo, se presentan brácteas del pedúnculo durante la antesis, brácteas florales iguales o superiores al ovario, y no presentan sépalos. Las flores poseen pétalos carnosos, crecen en grupo en un eje corto y los pétalos miden alrededor de 3 cm (Espejo-Serna et al, 2004;Monteiro et al, 2015).…”

Advances in and perspectives on evolution in Bromeliaceae

“…Gilmartin & Brown, 1987;Varadarajan & Gilmartin, 1988). The use of morphological data in phylogenetic analysis decreased for many years before being re-established in the last decade, when micro-and macromorphological traits began to be employed at inter-and infrageneric levels (De Faria et al, 2004;Hornung-Leoni & Sosa, 2008;Almeida et al, 2009;Aguirre-Santoro et al, 2015;Da Costa et al, 2015;Donad ıo, Pozner & Giussani, 2015;Monteiro, Mantovani & Forzza, 2015;Saraiva, Mantovani & Forzza, 2015) and some studies in recent years have identified morphological characters with good taxonomic value for phylogenetic inferences (e.g. Versieux et al, 2010;De Faria, Vieira & Wendt, 2012;Magalhães & Mariath, 2012;Santos-Silva et al, 2013;Nogueira et al, 2015).…”