PJB-2023-487
Assessment of morphological characteristics and molecular evolutionary relationships in parasitic species of the Loranthaceae family
Widad Saleem Aljuhani
Abstract
The Loranthaceae family is considered parasitic, and mistletoe negatively affects the growth and productivity of host trees. It is important to focus on understanding this family in terms of the types of hosts and the impact or damage that it can cause. Loranthaceae has several complicated taxonomic issues. There are four genera and six species of Loranthaceae that grow naturally in Saudi Arabia. It grows on fruit trees and causes damage, and these species have not received sufficient morphological or molecular study. This work aims to evaluate the importance of morphological traits and the phylogenetic relationships between Loranthaceae species.
eleven morphological characteristics of leaves, flowers and fruit were investigated in the study samples. The discrimination power of these characteristics was evaluated using different statistical analysis methods, such as principal component analysis (PCA), cluster hierarchical clustering analysis (HC)A, and analysis of variance (ANOVA). On the other hand, molecular experiments included extracting the DNA of the samples and amplification using different chloroplast regions cpDNA (rbcL, matK, and trnL–trnF), as well as nuclear regions nrDNA (ITS1 and ITS2). The
results of DNA sequences of this study and available sequences of Loranthaceae species in GenBank were used to reconstruct the phylogenetic trees and investigate the genetic relationships.
The morphological characteristics that were used in this study, especially "Lamina width, lamina area, and lamina pedicel length", were able to discriminate between Loranthaceae species and classify species within clusters based on their affiliation to subtribes Emelianthinae and Tapinanthinae. According to the current results, the maximum parsimony (MP) phylogenetic tree based on matK and rbcL genes has well-supported branch nodes compared to other genes, especially for tribe Lorantheae.
The results of such studies are useful in determining the morphological and molecular characteristics of the species that infect trees and will thus facilitate resistance efforts. Available molecular data of parasitic plants could help to strengthen efforts in weed management.
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