The evolutionary history of Fouquieriaceae (Ericales): biogeography, growth habit, habitat colonization, and chromosome evolution Article uri icon

abstract

  • Fouquieriaceae consists of a single genus Fouquieria with eleven species occurring in arid and semiarid regions in Mexico and the southwestern USA. A recently developed phylogeny based on chloroplast DNA sequences provided strong support for the monophyly of the genus and the evolutionary species relationships. However, details of its evolutionary history remain unclear. Due to this uncertainty, additional information such as the evolution on its growth habit, reconstruction of the ancestral habitat, and on chromosome evolution is needed for a clear understanding of its evolutionary history. Different hypotheses concerning the shift of growth habits (succulent or woody) and the occupation of the ancestral habitat, and the chromosomal evolution in the family were analyzed. We assessed the ancestral distribution by fitting different biogeographic models. Our results suggest that Fouquieriaceae may have originated in two regions at the margins of the present geographic distribution of the genus: the Sonoran Desert and desert areas south of the Mexican Transvolcanic Belt. However, our results suggest that the ancestral lineage of Foquieriaceae was originated in desert habitats in central–southern Mexico with a basal chromosome number of n = 12, and a succulent habit, all of which may have allowed the dispersion of polyploid species to newly developed dry environments during the Late Miocene. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Austria, part of Springer Nature.

publication date

  • 2022-01-01