Splitting one species into 22: an unusual tripling of molecular, morphological, and geographical differentiation in the fern family Didymochlaenaceae (Polypodiales)

Abstract

The pantropical fern genus Didymochlaena (Didymochlaenaceae) has long been considered to contain one species only. Recent studies have resolved this genus/family as either sister to the rest of eupolypods I or as the second branching lineage of eupolypods I, and have shown that this genus is not monospecific, but the exact species diversity is unknown. In this study, a new phylogeny is reconstructed based on an expanded taxon sampling and six molecular markers. Our major results include: (i) Didymochlaena is moderately or weakly supported as sister to the rest of eupolypods I, highlighting the difficulty in resolving the relationships of this important fern lineage in the polypods; (ii) species in Didymochlaena are resolved into a New World clade and an Old World clade, and the latter further into an African clade and an Asian‐Pacific clade; (iii) an unusual tripling of molecular, morphological and geographical differentiation in Didymochlaena is detected, suggesting single vicariance or dispersal events in individual regions and no evidence for reversals at all, followed by allopatric speciation at more or less homogeneous rates; (iv) evolution of 18 morphological characters is inferred and two morphological synapomorphies defining the family are recognized—the elliptical sori and fewer than 10 sori per pinnule, the latter never having been suggested before; (v) based on morphological and molecular variation, 22 species in the genus are recognized contrasting with earlier estimates of between one and a few; and (vi) our biogeographical analysis suggests an origin for Didymochlaena in the latest Jurassic–earliest Cretaceous and the initial diversification of the extant lineages in the Miocene—all but one species diverged from their sisters within the last 27 Myr, in most cases associated with allopatric speciation owing to geologic and climatic events, or dispersal.

Angiopteris nodosipetiolata (Marattiaceae), a new fern species from Yunnan, China

“…Relying on macroscopic morphological classification in the past has frequently resulted in treating groups with subtle morphological differences as a single species due to subjective interpretations of morphology ( Gu et al 2022 ). For instance, Didymochlaena Desvaux (1811 : 303) was historically considered to contain only one (PPG I 2016) or six species ( Shang et al 2020 ), based on morphological characters, while a recent study utilising morphological and molecular variation has identified 22 species within the genus ( Shang et al 2023 ), marking a threefold increase in the previously known number of species. Similarly, Ptisana soluta (Compton) Murdock & Perrie (2023:53), a member of the Marattiaceae , was long regarded as the widespread South Pacific species P. salicina (Sm.)…”