Molecular phylogeny among Triticum-Aegilops species and of the tribe Triticeae

Abstract

The tribe Triticeae includes some of the world’s most important cereal crops, such as wheat, barley, and rye. It also includes important, mostly perennial, fodder grasses such as Agropyron, Elymus, Leymus, Psathyrostachys, and others. Many wild annual grasses of the tribe Triticeae belong to a highly valuable gene pool for cereal breeding—Triticum, Aegilops, Secale, Hordeum, Dasypyrum, etc., and some are interesting ephemeral plants of deserts, including Eremopyrum, Crithopsis, and Heteranthelium. Another group is interesting taxonomically, because they are on the border or just beyond the limit of the tribe, such as Brachypodium and Henrardia. Triticeae is a taxonomically controversial group at both the species and generic level. One extreme is considering Triticum to be the only genus of Triticeae, and an opposite extreme is accepting of a huge amount of often monotypic genera. Therefore, it seemed appropriate to review here several issues of the taxonomy and phylogeny of the tribe Triticeae.