Study on the sistematic position of Cipocereus Ritter (Cactaceae)

• Grant number: 18/10475-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: October 01, 2018
• End date: July 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Genetics - Plant Genetics
• Principal Investigator: Evandro Marsola de Moraes
• Grantee: Danielle Bitencourt Araújo
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Humanas e Biológicas (CCHB). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). Sorocaba , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The convergent evolution and phenotypic plasticity highly observed in the family Cactaceae make the understanding of the systematic and evolutionary history of its taxa very difficult. As a way to deal with this challenge, systematic studies of the family have been focusing on the use of molecular data to develop phylogenetic hypotheses. One of the taxa of Cactaceae that carries a conflicting positioning is the genus Cipocereus (subtribe Cereinae), endemic of the campos rupestres of Minas Gerais. The genus comprises only five species that exhibit cylindrical bodies and flowers externally bluish. Although considered a monophyletic genus, its systematic history is marked by the positioning of its species within close related genera, like Pilosocereus and Cereus. Whereas the use of genomic data has been a potential strategy for resolving conflicting phylogenetic relationships, the increase of loci in phylogenetic analyzes has also shown increased recovery of incongruent topologies. The present project aims to develop a hypothesis on the systematic position of the genus Cipocereus from a genomic approach with available data. The selection of markers for the elaboration of phylogenies will be performed from sequence data of Cipocereus species and closely related genera available in the database of the research group related to the present project. The phylogenetic analysis will be performed by the concatenation approach, species tree and accessing the topology of the gene trees separately. Additionally, sets of topologies that support the relations between the different operational taxonomic units (OTUs) will be identified.