PHYLOGENETIC STUDY OF THE GENERA MICHAUXIA L'HéRIT., ASYNEUMA GRISE B. ET SCHENK AND LEGOUSIA DURAND (CAMPANULACEAE) IN THE KURDISTAN REGION-IRAQ

摘要

Campanulaceae are a highly diverse clade of angiosperms. Chloroplast markers have greatly improved our understanding of this clade, but many relationships remain unclear primarily due to low levels of molecular evolution and recent and rapid divergence. Furthermore, focusing solely on maternally inherited markers such as those from the chloroplast genome may obscure processes such as hybridization. We explore the phylogenetic utility of two low-copy nuclear loci from the pentatricopeptide repeat gene family (PPR). Rapidly evolving nuclear loci may provide increased phylogenetic resolution in clades containing recently diverged or closely related taxa. We present results based on chloroplast and low-copy nuclear loci, and discuss the utility of such markers to resolve evolutionary relationships and infer hybridization events within Campanuloideae clade. The phylogeny of the genera Michauxia, Asyneuma and Legousia in Kurdistan Region was investigated by using eight in-group species and one out-group related genus Campanula conferta, based on the matK-KIM intergenic region of chloroplast DNA and internal transcribed spacer of nuclear ribosomal DNA. Individual and combined analysis of matK-KIM and ITS2 sequence data indicated monophyly of the Asyneuma and Legousia genera, the results for bayesian and maximum parsimony displayed three clades of Michauxia, Asyneuma, and Legousia with high supports (bs=76%, pp=0.100).