AUTHOR=Cheng Yajuan , Zhou Kai , Humphreys Mike W. , Harper John A. , Ma Xiao , Zhang Xinquan , Yan Haidong , Huang Linkai 

TITLE=Phylogenetic Relationships in the Festuca-Lolium Complex (Loliinae; Poaceae): New Insights from Chloroplast Sequences

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution

VOLUME=4

YEAR=2016

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/ecology-and-evolution/articles/10.3389/fevo.2016.00089

DOI=10.3389/fevo.2016.00089

ISSN=2296-701X

ABSTRACT=<p>The species within the <italic>Lolium</italic>/<italic>Festuca</italic> grass complex have dispersed and colonized large areas of temperate global grasslands both naturally and by human intervention. The species within this grass complex represent some of the most important grass species both for amenity and agricultural use worldwide. There has been renewed interest by grass breeders in producing hybrid combinations between these species and several countries now market <italic>Festulolium</italic> varieties as a combination of genes from both genera. The two genera have been differentiated by their inflorescence structure, but controversy has surrounded the taxonomic classification of the <italic>Lolium</italic>-<italic>Festuca</italic> complex species for several decades. In order to better understand the complexities within the <italic>Lolium</italic>/<italic>Festuca</italic> complex and their genetic background, the phylogeny of important examplers from the <italic>Lolium-Festuca</italic> complex were reconstructed. In total 40 taxa representing the <italic>Festuca</italic> and <italic>Lolium</italic> species with <italic>Vulpia myuros</italic> and <italic>Brachypodium distachyon</italic> as outgroups were sampled, using two non-coding intergenic spacers (<italic>trnQ-rps16</italic>, <italic>trnH-psbA</italic>) and one coding gene (<italic>rbc</italic>L). Maximum parsimony (MP), Bayesian inference (BI) analyses based on each partition and combined plastid DNA dataset, and median-jointing network analysis were employed. The outcomes strongly suggested that the subgen. <italic>Schedonorus</italic> has a close relationship to <italic>Lolium</italic>, and it is also proposed to move the sect. <italic>Leucopoa</italic> from subgen. <italic>Leucopoa</italic> to Subgen. <italic>Schedonorus</italic> and to separate sect. <italic>Breviaristatae</italic> from the subgen. <italic>Leucopoa</italic>. We found that <italic>F. californica</italic> could be a lineage of hybrid origin because of its intermediate placement between the “broad-leaved” and “fine-leaved” clade.</p>