Phylogenetic analysis of fossil flowers using an angiosperm-wide data set: proof-of-concept and challenges ahead.

ABSTRACT:

Premise

Significant paleobotanical discoveries in recent decades have considerably improved our understanding of the early evolution of angiosperms and their flowers. However, our ability to test the systematic placement of fossil flowers on the basis of phylogenetic analyses has remained limited, mainly due to the lack of an adequate, angiosperm-wide morphological data set for extant taxa. Earlier attempts to place fossil flowers phylogenetically were, therefore, forced to make prior qualitative assessments of the potential systematic position of fossils and to restrict phylogenetic analyses to selected angiosperm subgroups.

Methods

We conduct angiosperm-wide molecular backbone analyses of 10 fossil flower taxa selected from the Cretaceous record. Our analyses make use of a

SUBMITTER: Schonenberger J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7702048 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature