Juniperus excelsa

Hojjati, Fatemeh, Kazempour-Osaloo, Shahrokh, Adams, Robert Philip & Assadi, Mostafa, 2018, Molecular phylogeny of Juniperus in Iran with special reference to the J. excelsa complex, focusing on J. seravschanica, Phytotaxa 375 (2), pp. 135-157 : 150

The Juniperus excelsa complex

The Bayesian combined tree based on 2956 nucleotide sites (including 52 potentially parsimony-informative sites) of nrDNA ITS, plastid pet N- psb M (found as the most informative plastid fragment in this complex by screening) and the single copy nuclear gene, LHCA 4 (found as the most informative SCNG fragment in this complex by screening) was utilized to examine the variation in the J. excelsa complex in Iran ( Fig. 3 ). This tree shows J. seravschanica as a wellsupported clade that contains Juniperus samples from SE Iran. Juniperus excelsa specimens from Greece are located in a distinct clade with a strong support. However, that clade does not contain any plants from Iran, supporting the conclusion of Adams et al. (2014) that J. excelsa does not occur in Iran. Putative Juniperus turcomanica samples from SW Iran are revealed as polytomy due to apparent hybridization ( Adams et al. 2016). Juniperus polycarpos samples from NW Iran do not form a clade, and again this is likely due to hybridization (see Adams et al. 2016). Juniperus samples from SW Iran (group X) form a polytomy.

The Bayesian tree based on plastid pet N- psb M ( Fig. 4 ) shows the J. excelsa clade and a clade with low support that contains J. seravschanica and samples from SE Iran.

The Bayesian tree based on single copy nuclear gene LHCA 4 ( Fig. 5 ) shows a weakly supported clade that contains J. seravschanica and samples from SE and SW Iran.

Figures

FIGURE 3. Fifty percent majority rule consensus Bayesian tree based on nrDNA ITS, plastid petN-psbM intergenic spacer and single copy nuclear gene LHCA4 combined data. Numbers above branches are Bayesian posterior possibilities (before slashes) and maximum likelihood bootstrap support values (after slashes), while numbers under branches are maximum parsimony bootstrap support values. Values <50 % are not shown. CI= 0.654 RI= 0.933.

FIGURE 4. Fifty percent majority rule consensus Bayesian tree based on plastid petN-psbM intergenic spacer data. Numbers above branches are Bayesian posterior possibilities (before slashes) and maximum likelihood bootstrap support values (after slashes), while numbers under branches are maximum parsimony bootstrap support values. Values <50 % are not shown. CI= 1.000 RI= 1.000.

FIGURE 5. Fifty percent majority rule consensus Bayesian tree based on single copy nuclear gene LHCA4 data. Numbers above branches are Bayesian posterior possibilities (before slashes) and maximum likelihood bootstrap support values (after slashes), while numbers under branches are maximum parsimony bootstrap support values. Values <50 % are not shown. CI= 0.909 RI= 0.989.