Morphometrics of Daucus (Apiaceae): a counterpart to a phylogenomic study.

Premise Of Study: Molecular phylogenetics of genome-scale data sets (phylogenomics) often produces phylogenetic trees with unprecedented resolution. A companion phylogenomics analysis of Daucus using 94 conserved nuclear orthologs supported many of the traditional species but showed unexpected results that require morphological analyses to help interpret them in a practical taxonomic context.

Methods: We evaluated character state distributions, stepwise discriminant analyses, canonical variate analyses, and hierarchical cluster analyses from 40 morphological characters from 81 accessions of 14 taxa of Daucus and eight species in related genera in an experimental plot.