Origin of the Rapa endemic genus Apostates: Revisiting major disjunctions and evolutionary conservatism in the Bahia alliance (Compositae: Bahieae)

Abstract

Molecular phylogenetic analyses of nuclear and chloroplast DNA sequences indicate that the rediscovered Apostates, known only from Rapa in the Austral Islands of southeastern Polynesia, represents an example of extreme long-distance dispersal (> 6500 km) from southwestern North America and one of at least four disjunctions of comparable magnitude in the primarily New World Bahia alliance (tribe Bahieae). Each of the disjunctions appears to have resulted from north-to-south dispersal since the mid-Miocene; three are associated with such marked morphological and ecological change that some of the southern taxa (including Apostates) have been treated in distinct genera of uncertain relationship. Phyllotaxy within the Bahia alliance, however, evidently has been even more conservative evolutionarily than reflected by previous taxonomies, with alternate-leaved and opposite-leaved clades in Bahia sensu Ellison each encompassing representatives of other genera that share the same leaf arrangements. A revised taxonomic treatment of the Bahia alliance is proposed to recognize morphologically distinctive, monophyletic genera, including the critically endangered Apostates.

Metapopulation vicariance explains old endemics on young volcanic islands

“…Others include a clade of Fuchsia (Onagraceae) in New Zealand and Tahiti, and its sister in South America (Heads, , fig. 10.3); and Apostates (Asteracae) of Rapa Island and its sister the New World Bahia group (Baldwin and Wood, ).…”

Amphitropical disjunctions in New World Menthinae: Three Pliocene dispersals to South America following late Miocene dispersal to North America from the Old World

“…logically explained by vicariance, ancient or otherwise. Within this narrower subset of disjunctions are species distributions that occur in northern and southern temperate regions but bypass the tropics, known as amphitropical (and bipolar) disjunctions ( Raven, 1963 ;Solbrig, 1972 ;Wen and Ickert-Bond, 2009 ;Donoghue, 2011 ;Baldwin and Wood, 2016 ;Simpson et al, 2017 ).…”

Tribus de Asteraceae en México, morfología y clave de identificación

“…Las tribus Helenieae, Heliantheae y Liabeae registraron una ligera disminución de géneros y especies debido a errores de circunscripción, aceptación de sinónimos como nombres válidos o viceversa (Villaseñor, 2016;, los cuales fueron corregidos en trabajos recientes (Pruski, 2018;Lichter-Marck y Baldwin, 2022). En Bahieae también hubo actualizaciones nomenclaturales (Baldwin y Wood, 2016); sin embargo, las cifras permanecieron igual (Cuadro 1, Apéndice).…”