Phylogeny and Biogeography of <i>Morus</i> (Moraceae)
Chen-Xuan Yang,
Shui-Yin Liu,
Nyree J. C. Zerega,
Gregory W. Stull,
Elliot M. Gardner,
Qin Tian,
Wei Gu,
Qing Lu,
Ryan A. Folk,
Heather R. Kates,
Robert P. Guralnick,
Douglas E. Soltis,
Pamela S. Soltis,
Yue-Hua Wang,
Ting-Shuang Yi
Affiliations
Chen-Xuan Yang
School of Life Sciences, Yunnan University, Kunming 650500, China
Shui-Yin Liu
Germplasm Bank of Wild Species, Yunnan Key Laboratory of Crop Wild Relatives Omics, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China
Nyree J. C. Zerega
Negaunee Institute for Plant Conservation and Action, Chicago Botanic Garden, Glencoe, IL 60022, USA
Gregory W. Stull
Germplasm Bank of Wild Species, Yunnan Key Laboratory of Crop Wild Relatives Omics, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China
Elliot M. Gardner
International Center for Tropical Botany, Institute of Environment, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199, USA
Qin Tian
Germplasm Bank of Wild Species, Yunnan Key Laboratory of Crop Wild Relatives Omics, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China
Wei Gu
Germplasm Bank of Wild Species, Yunnan Key Laboratory of Crop Wild Relatives Omics, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China
Qing Lu
Germplasm Bank of Wild Species, Yunnan Key Laboratory of Crop Wild Relatives Omics, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China
Ryan A. Folk
Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
Heather R. Kates
Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
Robert P. Guralnick
Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
Douglas E. Soltis
Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
Pamela S. Soltis
Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
Yue-Hua Wang
School of Life Sciences, Yunnan University, Kunming 650500, China
Ting-Shuang Yi
Germplasm Bank of Wild Species, Yunnan Key Laboratory of Crop Wild Relatives Omics, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650201, China
The mulberry genus, Morus L. (Moraceae), has long been taxonomically difficult, and its species circumscription has only been defined recently. This genus comprises ca. 16 species distributed across Asia and the Americas, yet its biogeographic history remains poorly understood. In this study, we reconstructed the phylogeny and explored the biogeographic history of Morus using a combination of newly generated and previously published Hyb-Seq data. Our nuclear phylogeny recovered three well-supported geographic clades of Morus and showed that M. notabilis (China) is sister to the American clade plus the Asian clade. Multiple reticulation events among species of Morus and extensive incomplete lineage sorting (ILS) likely explain the difficulties in inferring phylogenetic relationships within the genus. Divergence time estimation indicated that Morus originated at the Eocene–Oligocene boundary, and current lineages started to diverge during the early Miocene, there is ambiguity surrounding the ancestral area with the two most likely regions being Sino-Himalaya or the Americas. Biogeographic inference and the fossil record suggest that Morus might have experienced extensive local extinction events during the Tertiary. Morus has expanded its distributional range through two dispersals from the Sino-Himalayan and Sino-Japanese regions to Southeast Asia. In summary, our new phylogenetic scheme and the biogeographic history presented here provide an essential foundation for understanding species relationships and the evolutionary history of Morus.
