75 results match your criteria: "Botanical Research Institute of Texas[Affiliation]"

While flowering plants have diversified in virtually every terrestrial clime, climate constrains the distribution of individual lineages. Overcoming climatic constraints may be associated with diverse evolutionary phenomena including whole genome duplication (WGD), gene-tree conflict, and life-history changes. Climatic shifts may also have facilitated increases in flowering plant diversification rates.

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We present a molecular phylogeny for the subtribe Ecliptinae (Asteraceae, Heliantheae) based on three plastid (, , and ) and two nuclear (nrITS and nrETS) markers. The results of the phylogenetic reconstruction were utilised as a topological constraint for a subsequent divergence dating analysis and ancestral range reconstructions. We sampled 41 species and 40 genera (72%) of Ecliptinae and two species of (as outgroups) to elucidate the generic relationships between the genera of this subtribe.

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Article Synopsis
  • - Vaccinieae is a diverse group within the Ericaceae family, consisting of about 1430 species, primarily tropical, but well-known for temperate crops like blueberries and cranberries.
  • - A phylogenomic study of 210 species revealed that Vaccinieae likely originated in temperate North America around 30 million years ago, with tropical species resulting from multiple migrations from these northern ancestors.
  • - Findings indicate significant evolutionary events, including a unique ovary structure development and a major polyploid event, suggesting that Vaccinium's classification needs reevaluation due to its complex evolutionary history.
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A seed recovered during archaeological excavations of a cave in the Judean desert was germinated, with radiocarbon analysis indicating an age of 993 CE- 1202 calCE. DNA sequencing and phylogenetic analysis identified the seedling as belonging to the angiosperm genus Commiphora Jacq., sister to three Southern African Commiphora species, but unique from all other species sampled to date.

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Latitudinal gradients in seed predation persist in urbanized environments.

Nat Ecol Evol

October 2024

Instituto Biósfera and Colegio de Ciencias Biológicas y Ambientales, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Quito, Ecuador.

Article Synopsis
  • - Urbanization is transforming cities and suburbs globally, making them more similar to each other and less like the local ecosystems they replaced, but its impact on large-scale ecological patterns is still unclear.
  • - A study across 14,000 km in the Americas found that while seed predation increases from high to low latitudes in natural areas, this latitudinal trend remains strong even in urbanized regions despite significant habitat changes.
  • - Urbanization reduced overall seed predation and vertebrate predation but had no significant effect on invertebrate predation, while increasing predation by ants, suggesting that urbanization can change predator dynamics and influence the evolution of urban species.
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Premise: Reticulate evolution, often accompanied by polyploidy, is prevalent in plants, and particularly in the ferns. Resolving the resulting non-bifurcating histories remains a major challenge for plant phylogenetics. Here, we present a phylogenomic investigation into the complex evolutionary history of the vining ferns, Lygodium (Lygodiaceae, Schizaeales).

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Lichens are remarkable and classic examples of symbiotic organisms that have fascinated scientists for centuries. Yet, it has only been for a couple of decades that significant advances have focused on the diversity of their green algal and/or cyanobacterial photobionts. Cyanolichens, which contain cyanobacteria as their photosynthetic partner, include up to 10% of all known lichens and, as such, studies on their cyanobionts are much rarer compared to their green algal counterparts.

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Background: There is a growing demand for fast and reliable plant biomolecular analyses. DNA extraction is the major bottleneck in plant nucleic acid-based applications especially due to the complexity of tissues in different plant species. Conventional methods for plant cell lysis and DNA extraction typically require extensive sample preparation processes and large quantities of sample and chemicals, elevated temperatures, and multiple sample transfer steps which pose challenges for high throughput applications.

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Population differentiation and dynamics of five pioneer species of Gaultheria from the secondary forests in subtropical China.

BMC Plant Biol

June 2024

School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Yunnan Key Laboratory of Pharmacology for Natural Products, Yunnan College of Modern Biomedical Industry, Kunming Medical University, Kunming, 650500, Yunnan, China.

Background: The influence of native secondary succession associated with anthropogenic disturbance on the biodiversity of the forests in subtropical China remains uncertain. In particular, the evolutionary response of small understory shrubs, particularly pioneer species inhabiting continuously disturbed habitats, to topographic heterogeneity and climate change is poorly understood. This study aimed to address this knowledge gap by focusing on the Gaultheria crenulata group, a clade of small pioneer shrubs in subtropical China.

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The role of Pleistocene dispersal in shaping species richness of sky island wintergreens from the Himalaya-Hengduan Mountains.

Mol Phylogenet Evol

August 2024

School of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Yunnan Key Laboratory of Pharmacology for Natural Products, Kunming Medical University, Kunming 650500, China. Electronic address:

Article Synopsis
  • The study focuses on how biogeographic dispersal has impacted plant diversity in the Himalaya-Hengduan Mountains, specifically examining the alpine clade Gaultheria ser. Trichophyllae.
  • Through phylogenetic analysis, researchers analyzed dispersal patterns, revealing a trend of eastward dispersals within regions and westward dispersals between regions, influenced by climatic changes over time.
  • The findings suggest that the timing of these dispersals, especially during glacial and interglacial periods, plays a crucial role in shaping the current species richness of G. ser. Trichophyllae.
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Premise: Traditional moist chamber cultures (MCs) prepared in aseptic laboratory environments using sterile Petri dishes are commonly used to quantify the microbiota of rough-bark tree species and woody vines. MCs are typically expensive and may be difficult to make, so a less expensive option made from easily available supplies was developed. These cost-friendly MCs were compared with standard laboratory methods to demonstrate their efficacy.

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Premise: Among the slowest steps in the digitization of natural history collections is converting imaged labels into digital text. We present here a working solution to overcome this long-recognized efficiency bottleneck that leverages synergies between community science efforts and machine learning approaches.

Methods: We present two new semi-automated services.

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Article Synopsis
  • The text discusses a group of aromatic shrubs found primarily in subtropical and East Asian tropical areas, noting the need for better taxonomic classification due to their complexity.
  • A study focused on populations from mainland China revealed five distinct populations with notable morphological and habitat variations and involved field surveys and phylogenetic analysis to clarify relationships.
  • The research resulted in the identification of three new species, the elevation of one variety to species status, and the reclassification of certain varieties as synonyms, along with the provision of a comprehensive key and descriptions for the five recognized species.
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Premise: The phylogenetic relationships among the ca. 138 species of goldenrods (Solidago; Asteraceae) have been difficult to infer due to species richness, and shallow interspecific genetic divergences. This study aims to overcome these obstacles by combining extensive sampling of goldenrod herbarium specimens with the use of a custom Solidago hybrid-sequence capture probe set.

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Prokaryotic genomes are often considered to be mosaics of genes that do not necessarily share the same evolutionary history due to widespread horizontal gene transfers (HGTs). Consequently, representing evolutionary relationships of prokaryotes as bifurcating trees has long been controversial. However, studies reporting conflicts among gene trees derived from phylogenomic data sets have shown that these conflicts can be the result of artifacts or evolutionary processes other than HGT, such as incomplete lineage sorting, low phylogenetic signal, and systematic errors due to substitution model misspecification.

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The angiosperm family Primulaceae is morphologically diverse and distributed nearly worldwide. However, phylogenetic uncertainty has obstructed the identification of major morphological and biogeographic transitions within the clade. We used target capture sequencing with the Angiosperms353 probes, taxon-sampling encompassing nearly all genera of the family, tree-based sequence curation, and multiple phylogenetic approaches to investigate the major clades of Primulaceae and their relationship to other Ericales.

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The isolation of high-quality plant genomic DNA is a major prerequisite in many plant biomolecular analyses involving nucleic acid amplification. Conventional plant cell lysis and DNA extraction methods involve lengthy sample preparation procedures that often require large amounts of sample and chemicals, high temperatures and multiple liquid transfer steps which can introduce challenges for high throughput applications. In this study, a simple, rapid, miniaturized ionic liquid (IL)-based extraction method was developed for the isolation of genomic DNA from milligram fragments of Arabidopsis thaliana plant tissue.

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Many tropical wet forests are species-rich and have relatively even species frequency distributions. But, dominance by a single canopy species can also occur in tropical wet climates and can remain stable for centuries. These are uncommon globally, with the African wet tropics supporting more such communities than the Neotropics or Southeast Asia.

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Article Synopsis
  • The true blueberries, a group native to North America, are ecologically and economically important but poorly understood due to confusion over species boundaries and an unclear evolutionary history.
  • This study presents the first phylogenomic analysis of the diploid blueberries, using techniques like flow cytometry and target enrichment to gather genomic data.
  • The findings established monophyly for most morphospecies, identified exceptions, and suggested a hybrid origin for one taxon, paving the way for future research on taxonomic classification and evolutionary relationships in this group.
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Premise: The historical biogeography of ferns is typically expected to be dominated by long-distance dispersal due to their minuscule spores. However, few studies have inferred the historical biogeography of a large and widely distributed group of ferns to test this hypothesis. Our aims were to determine the extent to which long-distance dispersal vs.

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Phylogenomic loci define the generic boundaries of Gochnatieae and improve resolution at the species level in Moquiniastrum (Compositae).

Mol Phylogenet Evol

October 2022

United States National Herbarium, Department of Botany, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, MRC 166, Washington, DC, 20560, USA.

Understanding the evolution of the tribe Gochnatieae (Compositae) has been the subject of considerable effort in the past decade. This is due to the key position of this tribe in the phylogeny of the sunflower family and the corresponding implications for biogeographic and morphological evolution of Compositae. Previous studies have confirmed the monophyly of this tribe as well as most of the genera that belong to it.

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Background And Aims: Ferns are the second largest group of vascular plants and are distributed nearly worldwide. Although ferns have been integrated into some comparative ecological studies focusing on hydathodes, there is a considerable gap in our understanding of the functional anatomy of these secretory tissues that are found on the vein endings of many fern leaves. In this study, we aimed to investigate the phylogenetic distribution, structure and function of fern hydathodes.

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Background: Plant DNA isolation and purification is a time-consuming and laborious process relative to epithelial and viral DNA sample preparation due to the cell wall. The lysis of plant cells to free intracellular DNA normally requires high temperatures, chemical surfactants, and mechanical separation of plant tissue prior to a DNA purification step. Traditional DNA purification methods also do not aid themselves towards fieldwork due to the numerous chemical and bulky equipment requirements.

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Green plants play a fundamental role in ecosystems, human health, and agriculture. As de novo genomes are being generated for all known eukaryotic species as advocated by the Earth BioGenome Project, increasing genomic information on green land plants is essential. However, setting standards for the generation and storage of the complex set of genomes that characterize the green lineage of life is a major challenge for plant scientists.

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