Molecular Phylogeny of <i>Pectis</i> (Tageteae, Asteraceae), a C <sub>4</sub> Genus of the Neotropics, and its Sister Genus <i>Porophyllum</i>
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Pectis is a genus of ±90 xeric adapted New World species. Previous molecular phylogenetic studies showed Pectis closely related to Porophyllum, and one analysis resolved Porophyllum species nested within Pectis. Some Pectis species are known to use C4 photosynthesis. Here we investigate the phylogeny of Pectis and Porophyllum, examine the ploidy levels and geographical distribution of Pectis species in light of its phylogeny, and infer the origin and extent of C4 photosynthesis in both genera. Chloroplast and ITS data from 78 Pectis and 22 Porophyllum species were used to test the monophyly of Pectis and its previously described sections. Carbon isotope data were obtained to infer the photosynthetic pathway of 80 species, and the results mapped on the inferred phylogenies to determine the timing and pattern of evolution of the C4 pathway. The ITS dataset supports a monophyletic Pectis sister to a monophyletic Porophyllum, while the chloroplast dataset places two Porophyllum species sister to a combined Pectis Porophyllum clade. Five well-supported lineages are recovered in Pectis. All Pectis sampled have ∂13C values consistent with C4 photosynthesis, and all Porophyllum species sampled have ∂13C values consistent with C3 photosynthesis. We conclude that Pectis is monophyletic but only two of its recognized sections are monophyletic. Porophyllum is monophyletic but its sections are not. Porophyllum amplexicaule and Pr. scoparium should be treated as members of a new genus. The switch to the C4 pathway in Pectis happened in the late Miocene, probably in north/central Mexico, at or after the divergence of Pectis and Porophyllum. This location and timing is consistent with the evolution of C4 photosynthesis in other North American eudicot lineages, suggesting similar environmental conditions may underlie the switch to C4 photosynthesis.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".