| Abstract Detail
Systematics Freudenstein, John [1], Broe, Michael [1]. Teasing apart the species of mycoheterotrophic Ericaceae: Hypopitys lanuginosa resolved by DNA sequence, fungal host, and crowd-sourced aids to morphology. Hypopitys is a member of the leafless, mycoheterotrophic subfamily Monotropoideae of Ericaceae with very wide distribution, from Central America through North America and across Eurasia. Although many segregates have been proposed, most treatments recognize just one species, H. monotropa. In addition to minor details of morphology, plants exhibit considerable variation in color. Hence, a problem with analyzing diversity in such a genus is that the plants make very poor specimens, usually drying to brown. A combination of DNA sequence analysis, fungal host identification, and morphological study of crowd-sourced photographs of fresh plants is providing a way forward. Analysis of DNA sequence data has revealed considerable structure among populations across the North American range of the group and here we focus on populations in the eastern part of that distribution. We find a distinct group of late flowering, often reddish plants that correspond to the name H. lanuginosa, proposed by Michaux (in Monotropa) in 1803. Fungal host sampling thus far suggests that it may use a distinct group of Tricholoma, centering of T. luteomaculosum. Although a core group of H. lanuginosa are easily identifiable by their reddish color, a second group is sometimes less distinctively colored; all, however, flower at the later end of the bloom season for Hypopitys and tend to be fairly densely pubescent. This is the first of several species that we are resolving in the genus, taking the approach of connecting phenotypic distinctiveness to DNA lineage. Some of these species were proposed long ago, like H. lanuginosa; our analyses are thus validating the long-disregarded morphological insights of taxonomists over the past two centuries.
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1 - Ohio State University Herbarium, Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology, 1315 Kinnear Road, Columbus, OH, 43212, US
Keywords:
Ericaceae
mycoheterotrophy.
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: SYSTII, Systematics II: Basal Asterids & Euasterids I
Location: Virtual/Virtual
Date: Tuesday, July 20th, 2021
Time: 12:30 PM(EDT)
Number: SYSTII001
Abstract ID:889
Candidate for Awards:None |
