The First Comprehensive Phylogeny of Coptis (Ranunculaceae) and Its Implications for Character Evolution and Classification.

ABSTRACT: Coptis (Ranunculaceae) contains 15 species and is one of the pharmaceutically most important plant genera in eastern Asia. Understanding of the evolution of morphological characters and phylogenetic relationships within the genus is very limited. Here, we present the first comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the genus based on two plastid and one nuclear markers. The phylogeny was reconstructed using Bayesian inference, as well as maximum parsimony and maximum likelihood methods. The Swofford-Olsen-Waddell-Hillis and Bayesian tests were used to assess the strength of the conflicts between traditional taxonomic units and those suggested by the phylogenetic inferences. Evolution of morphological characters was inferred using Bayesian method to identify synapomorphies for the infrageneric

SUBMITTER: Xiang KL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4820238 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature