β-tubulin, ITS and group I intron sequences challenge the species pair concept in Physcia aipolia and P. caesia
- Author:
- Myllys L., Lohtander K. & Tehler A.
- Year:
- 2001
- Journal:
- Mycologia
- Pages:
- 93(2): 335-343
- Url:
ITS, group I intron and partial β-tubulin
sequences were used to infer phylogenies of a putative
lichen species pair: Physcia aipolia (sexual) and
P. caesia (asexual). A jackknife tree obtained from
the β-tubulin sequences produced a well-resolved
tree, whereas the resolution in the group I intron
and in the ITS tree was lower due to homoplasy. The
results obtained from the combined group I intron,
ITS and β-tubulin data indicate that neither P. caesia
nor P. aipolia are monophyletic and suggest that the
two taxa are conspecific. Although the combined
DNA data suggest the existence of several genetically
isolated lineages in the P. aipolia/caesia group, the
different lineages were not correlated with any morphological
characters. Within one of the lineages, the
incongruent placement of one P. aipolia specimen
may indicate sexual recombination. A contradictory
placement of one P. caesia specimen in different
trees suggests that the usually asexual P. caesia is occasionally
capable of sexual reproduction. The β-tubulin
gene was found to contain enough variation for
inferring relationships at the species level. Most of
the informative characters were found from intron
sequences and third codon positions in the exon regions.
All the nucleotide substitutions were synonymous.
Key Words: Ascomycetes, cryptic species, evolution,
genetic marker, Lecanorales, lichenized fungi,
parsimony jackknifer.
- Id:
- 25589
- Submitter:
- zdenek
- Post_time:
- Thursday, 25 June 2015 12:11