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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Systematics and Evolution
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1297499

Polyphyly of Boehmeria (Urticaceae) congruent with plastome structural variation

Provisionally accepted
Min Zhan Min Zhan 1Ling Xue Ling Xue 1Jian-Jun Zhou Jian-Jun Zhou 1Zhang Qiang Zhang Qiang 2Qin Xin-Mei Qin Xin-Mei 2Xiao-Wen Liao Xiao-Wen Liao 1Lei Wu Lei Wu 1*Alexandre Monro Alexandre Monro 3*Long-Fei Fu Long-Fei Fu 2*
  • 1 College of Forestry, Central South University Forestry and Technology, Changsha, Hunan Province, China
  • 2 Guangxi Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang Region, China
  • 3 Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Boehmeria is a taxonomically challenging group within the nettle family (Urticaceae). The polyphyly of the genus has been proposed by previous studies with respect to five genera (Debregeasia, Cypholophus, Sarcochlamys, Archiboehmeria and Astrothalamus). Extensive homoplasy of morphological characters has made generic delimitation problematic. Previous studies in other plant groups suggest that plastome structural variations have the potential to provide characters useful in reconstructing evolutionary relationships. We aimed to test this across Boehmeria and its allied genera by mapping plastome structural variations onto a resolved strongly supported phylogeny. In doing so, we expanded the sampling of the plastome to include Cypholophus, Sarcochlamys, Archiboehmeria and Astrothalamus for the first time. The results of our phylogenomic analyses provide strong support for Sarcochlamys as being more closely related to Leucosyke puya than to Boehmeria and for the clustering of Boehmeria s.l. into four subclades. The sizes of the plastomes in Boehmeria s.l. ranged from 142,627 to 170,958 bp. The plastomes recovered a typical quadripartite structure comprising 127~146 genes. We observe several obvious structural variations across the taxa such as gene loss and multiple gene duplication, inverted repeats (IRs) contraction and wide expansions, inversions. Moreover, we recover a trend for these variations that the early clades were relatively conserved in evolution, whereas the later diverging clades were variable. We propose that the structural variations documented may be linked to the adaptation of Boehmeria s.l. to a wide range of habitats, from moist broadleaf forests in Asia to xeric shrublands and deserts in Africa. This study confirms that variation in plastome gene loss/duplication, IR contraction/expansion, and inversions can provide evidence useful for the reconstruction of evolutionary relationships.

    Keywords: Boehmeria, Polyphyly, Plastome, phylogenetic relationship, structural variations

    Received: 20 Sep 2023; Accepted: 08 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Zhan, Xue, Zhou, Qiang, Xin-Mei, Liao, Wu, Monro and Fu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Lei Wu, College of Forestry, Central South University Forestry and Technology, Changsha, 410000, Hunan Province, China
    Alexandre Monro, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Richmond, TW9 3AE, Surrey, United Kingdom
    Long-Fei Fu, Guangxi Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Guilin, 541006, Guangxi Zhuang Region, China

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