Preliminary Inferences of the Phylogeny of Bryophytes from Nuclear-Encoded Ribosomal RNA Sequences

Ribosomal RNA sequences and cladistic analysis were used to infer a phylogeny for eight bryophyte taxa. Portions of the cytoplasmic large (26S-like) and small (18S-like) subunit ribosomal RNA genes were sequenced for three marchantioid liverworts (Asterella, Conocephalum, and Riccia), three mosses (...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American journal of botany 1992-04, Vol.79 (4), p.459-466
Main Authors: Waters, Debra A., Buchheim, Mark A., Dewey, Richard A., Chapman, Russell L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Biological evolution
Botany
Bryophytes
Cladistics
Flowers & plants
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Liverworts
Parsimony
Phylogenetics
Phylogeny
Plant cytology, morphology, systematics, chorology and evolution
Plant evolution
Plants
Ribonucleic acid
Ribosomal RNA
RNA
Systematics and Evolution
Taxa
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Summary:Ribosomal RNA sequences and cladistic analysis were used to infer a phylogeny for eight bryophyte taxa. Portions of the cytoplasmic large (26S-like) and small (18S-like) subunit ribosomal RNA genes were sequenced for three marchantioid liverworts (Asterella, Conocephalum, and Riccia), three mosses (Atrichum, Fissidens, and Plagiomnium), and two hornworts (Phaeoceros and Notothylas). Cladistic analysis of these data suggests that the hornworts are the sister group to the mosses, the mosses and hornworts form a clade that is sister to the tracheophytes, and the liverworts form a clade sister to the other land plants. These results differ from previous cladistic analyses based on morphology, ultrastructure, and biochemistry, wherein the mosses alone are sister group to the tracheophytes. We conclude that cladistic analysis of molecular data can provide an independent data set for the study of bryophyte phylogeny, but the differences between the molecular and morphological results are a topic for further investigation.
ISSN:0002-9122
1537-2197
DOI:10.1002/j.1537-2197.1992.tb14575.x