Abstract Detail

70 Years After Schultes: Economic Botany from the Andes to the Amazon

Filipowicz, Natalia [1], Renner, Susanne [2].

Brunfelsia (Solanaceae): A single entry from South America into the Antilles followed by repeated radiations, and pollinator shifts involving butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds.

Among the hallucinogenic plants that most fascinated Richard Schultes, and later his student Timothy Plowman, was Brunfelsia grandiflora. Brunfelsia comprises c. 50 species of shrubs and treelets in the Antilles and South America, and the group's medicinal importance was already known in 1534 (herbal of Otto Brunfels). Plowman's revision of Brunfelsia distinguishes three sections that differ in flower and fruit morphology: section Brunfelsia (23 species) from the Antilles, Franciscea (ca. 18 spp.) in northwest South America, and Guaianenses in the Amazon basin (6 spp.). Brunfelsia species have gamopetalous white or purple flowers of various sizes, sometimes with abundant nectar, nocturnal scent, or colour-changing petals, and the centre of endemism are the Greater Antilles with 23 species. We inferred pollination mode changes and geographic relationships using combined plastid and nuclear DNA sequences for 65 accessions representing 38 species. Trees were rooted on 8 representatives of the Petunieae. Brunfelsia is monophyletic, and the deepest split is between an Antillean clade and a South American clade (each with 100% bootstrap support). Section Guaianenses is polyphyletic. The Caribbean clade is ancestrally moth-pollinated, with one shift to hummingbird pollination, while the South American clade is mostly butterfly-pollinated with one possible shift to moths. Brunfelsia entered the Antilles from South America once, and the single Panamanian species is related to the South American, not the Antillean clade. Cuba harbours a clade of 11 species that is sister to a Jamaican clade of 6 species, and each island was colonized only once, while Puerto Rico (5 species) was colonized twice. The type species of Brunfelsia, B. americana from Hispaniola and the Lesser Antilles, is polyphyletic, and since the name is based on a Plumier plate we have yet to resolve its application. Another problem species is the polyphyletic, horticulturally important South American B. uniflora. Using average nucleotide substitution rates to calibrate genetic distances yields a crown age of Brunfelsia of 13-21 Myr.

Broader Impacts:

1 - University of Munich (LMU), Department of Biology, Systematic Botany and Mycology, Menzinger Str. 67, Munich, 80638, Germany
2 - Systematic Botany and Mycology, Department of Biology, University of Munich (LMU), Munich, 80638, Germany

Keywords:
Brunfelsia
pollination mode
Antilles
South America.

Presentation Type: Symposium or Colloquium Presentation
Session: SY07
Location: Maryland Room/Chase Park Plaza
Date: Tuesday, July 12th, 2011
Time: 3:45 PM
Number: SY07009
Abstract ID:217