Molecular and morphological evidence for a new species of liverwort, Lejeunea heinrichsii (Marchantiophyta: Lejeuneaceae) from Taveuni, Fiji

Abstract

A new species from Fiji, Lejeunea heinrichsii is described and illustrated herein based on morphological characters and molecular phylogenetic analyses. The taxonomic descriptions of L. heinrichsii and the comparison with their allies are presented, together with the Maximum Likelihood (ML) and Bayesian phylogenetic analyses based on sequences of two chloroplast regions (trnL‐trnF, rbcL) and the nuclear ribosomal ITS region. This delicate and rather minute species is characterized by its autoicy, eplicate perianths, the oblong‐rectangular leaf lobes, the distantly arranged underleaves with lobes to 1/2‐2/3 underleaf length, and the leaf cells without well‐developed trigones and intermediate thickenings. In the molecular phylogeny, L. heinrichsii is placed sister to the Asian L. compressiuscula from Indonesia and forms an independent lineage including accessions of Neotropical L. adpressa from the Dominican Republic and the widespread Palaeotropical L. anisophylla from São Tomé and Príncipe. Morphologically, L. heinrichsii is very similar to L. capensis, however the result based on the molecular phylogenetic analyses revealed that the two species are very distinct.

Integrative Taxonomy Reveals a New Species of the Genus Lejeunea (Marchantiophya: Lejeuneaceae) from Peninsular Malaysia

“…Before molecular data, diagnostic characters such as toothed or eplicate perianths were used for generic distinction or subgenera delimitations. Such morphological data were often proved to be homoplastic in phylogenetic analyses [9,19]. In the present study, one such morphological character is caducous leaves which were regarded as one characteristic for the species L. cocoes.…”

Celebrating Research Devoted to Seed‐Free Land Plants

“…The third aspect is focused on the improved ability to study the evolution of genomes to answer major questions, such as the maintenance of species identity despite introgression and the role of processes shaping the genomic disparity in SFLP. The special issue contains the description of one extant liverwort, Lejeunea heinrichsii (Lee et al, ), and one extinct fern genus, Heinrichsia (Regalado et al, ), that are both new to science and named in memory of Jochen Heinrichs.…”

“…The second set consists of three studies reporting progress in our understanding of liverworts (Lee et al, ; Pressel & Duckett, ; Yu et al, ). The biology and taxonomy of these fantastic plants were some of the main research passions of Jochen Heinrichs.…”

“…The biology and taxonomy of these fantastic plants were some of the main research passions of Jochen Heinrichs. The study by Lee et al () used a molecular phylogenetic approach to clarify the identity of a Lejeunea accession collected from Fiji. The results provide further support to the argument that the taxonomy and biogeography of derived liverworts require studies incorporating comprehensive taxon sampling.…”