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A phylogenetic analysis of Apostasioideae (Orchidaceae) based on ITS, trnL-F and matK sequences

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Abstract.

The orchid subfamily Apostasioideae consists of two genera, Apostasia and Neuwiedia. To study the position of Apostasioideae within Orchidaceae and their intra- and intergeneric relationships, a molecular phylogenetic analysis has been conducted on the nuclear ITS region and the two plastid DNA regions trnL-F intron and matK. The two genera traditionally ascribed to Apostasioideae are each monophyletic. In Apostasia, A. nuda, with two stamens and no staminode, is sister to a clade comprising three species characterised by two stamens and one staminode. Within Neuwiedia, maximum parsimony analyses place N. zollingeri as sister to the clade formed by N. borneensis and N. veratrifolia. A family-wide phylogenetic analysis of matK sequences representing all proposed subfamilies of Orchidaceae produced five moderately to well-supported clades. One of these clades, Apostasioideae, is sister to the clade formed by Vanilloideae, Cypripedioideae, Orchidoideae and Epidendroideae. High transition-transversion ratio and the absence of stop codons in the individual sequences suggest that matK is at the transition from a possibly functional gene to a pseudogene in Apostasioideae, contrary to what is found in some other groups of Orchidaceae.

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Correspondence to A. Kocyan.

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The authors gratefully acknowledge Jamili Nais, Francis Liew and Rimi Repin (Sabah Parks Office, Malaysia), Anthony Lamb, Jain Linton and Aninguh Surat (Sabah Agricultural Park, Malaysia). The first author thanks the Economic Planning Unit (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) for the permit to conduct research in Malaysia. We thank Fabiana Bernasconi and Sandro Wagen for help in the lab; Reto Nyffeler and Marco Soliva for fruitful discussions while developing this project; Alex Widmer, Ken Cameron and an anonymous reviewer for critically reviewing the manuscript; T. Yukawa, Tsukuba Botanical Garden, Amakubo, Japan and the members of the Botanical Garden, University of Basel, Switzerland for providing leaf material; Andrew C. Rozefelds, Tasmanian Herbarium, Hobart, Australia for help in the field. This work was supported by the Marie-Louise-Splinter-Legat, the Eugen-Baumann-Fonds, the Georges-und-Antoine-Claraz-Schenkung, by a travel grant from the Swiss Academy of Sciences and from the Equal Opportunity Program of the University of Zurich.

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Kocyan, A., Qiu, YL., Endress, P. et al. A phylogenetic analysis of Apostasioideae (Orchidaceae) based on ITS, trnL-F and matK sequences. Plant Syst. Evol. 247, 203–213 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-004-0133-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-004-0133-3

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