CiteULike CiteULike
Delicious Delicious
Connotea Connotea

Citation for Study 10221

About Citation title: "Sectional rearrangement of arborescent clades of Croton (Euphorbiaceae) in South America: evolution of arillate seeds and a new species, Croton domatifer.".
About This study was previously identified under the legacy study ID S2577 (Status: Published).

Citation

Riina R., Van ee B., Wiedenhoeft A., Cardozo A., & Berry P. 2010. Sectional rearrangement of arborescent clades of Croton (Euphorbiaceae) in South America: evolution of arillate seeds and a new species, Croton domatifer. Taxon, .

Authors

  • Riina R.
  • Van ee B.
  • Wiedenhoeft A.
  • Cardozo A.
  • Berry P.

Abstract

Most of the arborescent Croton species in the New World were treated by Webster as belonging to either section Cyclostigma Griseb. or section Luntia (Neck. ex Raf.) G.L.Webster. The circumscription of section Cyclostigma has been treated recently. In this paper we focus on section Luntia, which was subdivided by Webster into two subsections, namely subsection Matourenses G.L.Webster and subsection Cuneati G.L.Webster. Using chloroplast trnL-F and nuclear ITS DNA sequence data, a close examination of the morphology of both groups, and a broader sampling of additional Croton lineages, we determine that these two subsections are not closely related, and they form distinct monophyletic groups in our current Croton phylogenetic hypothesis. We identify substantial morphological differences between the two groups, which further support the molecular phylogenetic results. A taxonomic recircumscription of both subsections, now elevated to the sectional level, is proposed. We focus mainly on section Cuneati, for which we include an identification key, a taxonomic revision with new synonyms, and the description of a new species from the coastal mountains of Venezuela, Croton domatifer. This new species is the only one in the genus known to bear leaf domatia. We infer that species in the Cuneati clade have lost the typical Croton caruncle, and some of them have evolved a different type of aril. We hypothesize that this specialized aril could be an adaptation to attract fish, which then might disperse the seeds throughout the Orinoco and Amazon river basins, where some of the species of section Cuneati occur.

About this resource

  • Canonical resource URI: http://purl.org/phylo/treebase/phylows/study/TB2:S10221
  • Other versions: Download Reconstructed NEXUS File Nexus Download NeXML File NeXML
  • Show BibTeX reference
  • Show RIS reference