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Phylogenetic position of Sonneratia griffithii based on sequences of the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer and 13 nuclear genes
Author(s) -
YANG YuChen,
YANG ShuHuan,
FANG Lu,
LI JianFang,
ZHONG CaiRong,
ZHOU RenChao,
SHI SuHua
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of systematics and evolution
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.249
H-Index - 46
eISSN - 1759-6831
pISSN - 1674-4918
DOI - 10.1111/jse.12102
Subject(s) - internal transcribed spacer , biology , phylogenetic tree , lythraceae , nuclear gene , botany , ribosomal dna , genus , phylogenetics , ribosomal rna , gene , genetics , genome
Compared with single gene analysis, multi‐locus sequence data usually perform better in resolving phylogenetic relationships of closely related species. Sonneratia (Lythraceae s.l.), a genus of mangroves, is widely distributed in the Indo‐West Pacific region. Sonneratia griffithii Kurz is one of the rarest species of this genus and morphological analyses have produced conflicting results regarding its affinity to other species of Sonneratia . In this study, we aimed to resolve the phylogenetic position of S. griffithii by using sequence data of the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (nrITS) and 13 nuclear genes. We first reconstructed the phylogeny of five Sonneratia species using nrITS and the nuclear gene rpl9 , which showed that S. caseolaris (L.) Engl. diverged first from the other species and that S. griffithii was closer to S. apetala Buch.‐Ham. and S. ovata Backer; however, the relationships among S. griffithii , S. apetala , and S. ovata could not be resolved. Further phylogenetic analysis based on sequences of nrITS and 13 nuclear genes and using S. caseolaris as an outgroup showed that S. griffithii and S. apetala were sister species with high bootstrap support. We conclude that S. griffithii and S. apetala have the closest relationships. Furthermore, our phylogenetic analyses do not support previous intrageneric classifications of Sonneratia .