Cladopus yangjiangensis (Podostemaceae), a new species from Guangdong, South China, redefining the phylogenetic relationships within Cladopus

By

Zhang, Miao
Liu, Xiu-Ting
Tian, Min
Chen, Zhangxue
Huang, Yinglin
Chen, Guo-Di
Binghua, Chen

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2024

Original Publication

PhytoKeys

Volume

249

Pages

231--249

Subjects

Biodiversity , chloroplast genome , Morphology , Phylogeny , Podostemaceae

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers [2010]-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.249.140342

 

Abstract

This paper introduces Cladopus yangjiangensis, a newly identified species that enriches our understanding of the diversity of the Podostemaceae in East Asia. Distinctive in its morphological traits, this species is characterized by the region’s longest flowering shoots and exhibits a high number of elongated leaves per cluster, along with relatively slender roots. Phylogenetic analyses using Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian Inference methods on plastome and matK sequences confirm C. yangjiangensis as a distinct species. It forms a clade with C. fukienensis, its closest relative, together branching off from C. austrosinensis. The plastome of C. yangjiangensis is 132,818 bp in length, comprising two inverted repeat regions of 20,881 bp, which are separated by large and small single-copy regions of 78,713 and 12,343 bp, respectively. Genetic analysis reveals the extensive loss of the ycf1 and ycf2 genes in the chloroplast genome, a trait common to the Podostemaceae, suggesting adaptations to environmental conditions or gene transfers to nuclear or mitochondrial genomes. This study improves the clarity of phylogenetic relationships in previous studies and underscores the importance of continued taxonomic and phylogenetic research.