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Beyond the typological characters: A morphometric approach to vegetative characters in Anthurium Schott (Araceae) species

  • Systematics, Phylogeny & Floristics - Original Article
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Abstract

Most plant descriptions focus on differences in reproductive structures, but some lineages, including the genus Anthurium Schott (Araceae), have the vegetative characters as the main source of relevant taxonomic variability. Several herbarium specimens of Anthurium have inaccurate determinations due to the great leaf-blade plasticity conflicting with the typical shape described. To address how much variation exist in natural populations and how the typical shape of the leaf-blade is distributed in these populations, we examine a representative set of samples from the type locality of six species of Anthurium Schott sect. Urospadix Engl. subsect. Obscureviridia Engl. from the Atlantic Forest through the elliptic Fourier analysis (EFA). We performed a EFA to quantify the leaf-blade shape amplitude, along with a qualitative classification matrix. The data were submitted to a multivariate set of methods to confront boundaries between character states and the degree of identification efficiency of each species. Our study is the first to present the proportion in which morphotypes may be distributed in natural populations and the results can help interpret doubtful materials in herbarium collections. Our data demonstrated that each dataset has a distinct morphological signature represented mainly by the mean shape, which may differ from the shape originally described in the protologue. We suggest a criterion to be adopted to improve this character’s effectiveness and use in taxonomic comparisons, which can also be adapted for other laminar structures.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Jean Luis Valentin and Nivea Dias dos Santos for their statistical suggestions. This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)—Finance Code 001 (Ph.D. scholarship to RTV) and by the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) (Ph.D. scholarship to LSBC and research fellowship to CMS).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Biológicas (Botânica), Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro/Museu Nacional, Quinta da Boa Vista, s/n, Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, CEP 20940-040, Brazil

    Rodrigo Theófilo Valadares, Luana Silva Braucks Calazans & Cassia Mônica Sakuragui

  2. Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, Herbário VIES, Av. Fernando Ferrari, 514, Vitória, Espírito Santo, CEP 29075-910, Brazil

    Rodrigo Theófilo Valadares & Luana Silva Braucks Calazans

  3. Instituto de Pesquisas Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro, Rua Pacheco Leão, 915, Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, CEP 22460-030, Brazil

    Claudine Massi Mynssen

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  1. Rodrigo Theófilo Valadares
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  2. Luana Silva Braucks Calazans
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  3. Claudine Massi Mynssen
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  4. Cassia Mônica Sakuragui
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by Rodrigo Theófilo Valadares. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Rodrigo Theófilo Valadares and Cassia Monica Sakuragui and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Rodrigo Theófilo Valadares.

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Valadares, R.T., Calazans, L.S.B., Mynssen, C.M. et al. Beyond the typological characters: A morphometric approach to vegetative characters in Anthurium Schott (Araceae) species. Braz. J. Bot 44, 715–723 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40415-021-00721-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40415-021-00721-z

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