The Journal of the Hattori Botanical Laboratory
Online ISSN : 2432-8944
Print ISSN : 0073-0912
THE TAXONOMIC POSITION OF THE GENUS NIPPONOLEJEUNEA HATT.
INKERI AHONEN
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JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

2006 Volume 99 Pages 319-342

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Abstract

  The liverwort genus Nipponolejeunea is morphologically intermediate between the genus Jubula and the family Lejeuneaceae. It has been assigned to the Lejeuneaceae especially because of the ventral leaf lobe, which forms a pocket-like “water sac” similar to that found in all Lejeuneaceae. Jubula, by contrast, has a helmet-shaped ventral lobe. Recent molecular analyses have, however, suggested that phylogenetically Nipponolejeunea is much closer to Jubula than to Lejeuneaceae. The taxonomic position of Nipponolejeunea was studied here using morphological and molecular data from three genomic regions: rbcL and trnL from the chloroplast and ITS2 from the nucleus. The morphological matrix contains 25 characters. The data was analyzed both with direct optimization and with static alignment using parsimony as an optimality criterion as well as with Bayesian inference. Analyses of all data and molecular data alone resulted in similar hypotheses, resolving Nipponolejeunea as a sister group to Jubula. The morphological data alone place Nipponolejeunea as sister group to Lejeuneaceae. On the basis of the combined analysis, the genus Nipponolejeunea should be included in the family Jubulaceae. The Lejeuneaceae-type lobule in Nipponolejeunea may be a paedomorphic character, since both the genera Jubula and Frullania produce Lejeuneaceae-type lobules at the juvenile stage.

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© 2006 Hattori Botanical Laboratory
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