Species delimitation in congenerics of Genus Daemonorops from India using DNA barcodes

Ano: 2015 | Volume: 5 | Número: 1

Autores: Senthilkumar Umapathy, Narasimhan Duvuru, Sanjappa Munivenkatappa, Uma Shaanker Ramanan, and Ravikanth Gudasalamani

Palavras-chave: Daemonorops, Species delimitation, DNA barcodes, Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Resumo Inglês:

Daemonorops is one of the largest genus of palms, widely distributed in tropical evergreen forests of South and Southeast Asia and especially abundant in peninsular Malaysia. It shares the phylogenetic clade with genus Calamus, but distinctly characterized by the presence of the prophyllar bracts in subtribe Calaminae of family Arecaceae (Palmae). However, the species of Daemonorops are highly variable and homoplasious in their morphological characters. Indian Daemonorops has six species, of which five distributed in Andaman group of islands and one in Indo-China. The study mainly focused on the species of Indo-Myanmar (Andaman Islands) because they have showed uncertainty in their stand as distinct species. Hence it was attempted to test the species delimitation in congenerics using phylogenetic and character analysis of the nuclear genes. The study indicates three species of both Griffith and Beccari (D. jenkinsiana, D. manii, and D. kurziana) in India, and another three species of Renuka et al. (D. wrightmyoensis, D. aurea, and D. rarispinosa) from Andaman group of islands could be the variabilities of D. manii that is colonized throughout the archipelago.