Molecular phylogenetics of subfamily Calamoideae (Palmae) based on nrDNA ITS and cpDNA rps16 intron sequence data

Phylogenetic relationships among the 22 genera of the palm subfamily Calamoideae were investigated using DNA sequence data from the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region and the chloroplast rps16 intron. The rps16 intron displayed low levels of variation, corroborating previous reports that the chloroplast genome of palms is highly conserved. High levels of within-individual polymorphism were identified in the ITS region, indicating that concerted evolution is not effectively homogenizing the ITS repeats. In the majority of cases, multiple clones from individuals resolved as monophyletic. However, the high levels of homoplasy in the ITS dataset, along with generally poor jackknife support for many clades, led to concerns that topologies obtained from these data might be unreliable. Nevertheless, congruence between trees based on ITS data alone and those based on rps16 intron data was high. Simultaneous analyses of both datasets yielded well-resolved topologies with high levels of jackknife support. A number of exciting groups emerged from the analyses: the African rattan clade comprising the endemic African rattan genera Laccosperma, Eremospatha, and Oncocalamus; the Lepidocaryeae-Raphia clade comprising the fan-leaved New World tribe Lepidocaryeae and the African genus Raphia; and the Asian clade comprising all Asian genera except Eugeissona. The position of Eugeissona was variable, although it did not resolve inside any of the three major clades mentioned above.