The Phylogeny of Land Plants: A Cladistic Analysis Based on Male Gametogenesis
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-1-1993
Description
A cladistic analysis was carried out to resolve phylogenetic pattern among bryophytes and other land plants. The analysis used 22 taxa of land plants and 90 characters relating to male gametogenesis. Coleochaete or Chara/Nitella were the outgroups in various analyses using HENNIG86, PAUP, and MacClade, and the land plant phylogeny was unchanged regardless of outgroup utilized. The most parsimonious cladograms from HENNIG86 (7 trees) have treelengths of 243 (C.I. = 0.58, R.I. = 0.82). Bryophytes are monophyletic as are hornworts, liverworts, and mosses, with hornworts identified as the sister group of a liverwort/moss assemblage. In vascular plants, lycophytes are polyphyletic and Selaginella is close to the bryophytes. Lycopodium is the sister group of the remaining vascular plants (minus Selaginella). Longer treelengths (over 250) are required to produce tree topologies in which either lycophytes are monophyletic or to reconstruct the paraphyletic bryophyte phylogeny of recent authors. This analysis challenges existing concepts of bryophyte phylogeny based on more classical data and interpretations, and provides new insight into land plant evolution.
Citation Information
Garbary, David J.; Renzaglia, Karen S.; and Duckett, Jeffrey G.. 1993. The Phylogeny of Land Plants: A Cladistic Analysis Based on Male Gametogenesis. Plant Systematics and Evolution. Vol.188(3-4). 237-269. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00937730 ISSN: 0378-2697