Morphological and ITS-based phylogenetic studies of Lonicera L.(Caprifoliaceae) species growing in Iran

Genus Lonicera has members that have opposite, narrowly elliptic to obovate leaves and yellow-white, red, or purple-red corollas together with capitate stigmas and undulated calyxes. According to Wendelbo (۱۹۶۵) in Flora Iranica, the ۱۹ members of Lonicera are classified into two subgenera, i.e., Lonicera and Chamaecerasus, and three sections, i.e., Isika, Isoxylosteum, and Coeloxylosteum. The four studied species belong to subgenus Chamae­cerasus and sections Isika and Coeloxylosteum. The taxonomy and phylogeny of this genus is highly complicated and controversial. The present study was done by the use of phenetic analyses of morphology together with Bayesian analyses of molecular data (ITS sequences) to illustrate the species relationships, taxonomic classification, and monophyly versus paraphyly of the species in genus Lonicera. We used seven Lonicera species for molecular studies, for which nrDNA-ITS sequences were newly obtained. Successive reweighting with rescaled consistency index was used to conduct the molecular examination, which showed close similarities among the results of maximum likelihood, maximum parsimony, and Bayesian methods based on the ITS dataset were observed. This study showed that in general, it is possible to differentiate the species via morphological features. Phylogenetic relationships within Lonicera were revealed, and ITS-based phylogenetic trees and morphological characters were in agreement.

Keywords:

Cladistics , Lonicera , ITS , Phenetic , phylogeny