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Phylogenetics of Araceae

New work at Kew shows that the duckweeds are a basal group within Aroids

This project is a follow-up to the morpho-anatomical study of generic taxonomy of Araceae summarized in The Genera of Araceae, completed in 1997, published by RBG Kew. The objective is to place Araceae phylogenetics on a broader footing, principally by means of molecular phylogenetics.  A particular concern is to resolve the long-argued question of the relationship of the duckweeds (lemnoids) and the aroids. Another objective is to establish with greater confidence the phylogenetic relationships of tribes which failed to resolve adequately under previous cladistic studies, particularly the genera included in the old Englerian Philodendroideae and the Calleae.

A major molecular study has now been completed (led by L. Cabrera and G. Salazar) resulting in a new phylogeny for the aroids and lemnoids.  This was reported at the Third International Conference on the Comparative Biology of the Monocotyledons – MONOCOTS III (held Ontario, California, USA, 31 March 2003) and a further major paper is in preparation by Cabrera and Salazar. The next stage of the work is to combine the molecular data with the morphological and anatomical data. This requires a major revision of the published morpho-anatomical data, which is to be undertaken by Mayo and Bogner, based on their earlier work but incorporating the many new studies published since 1997, notable a key anatomical survey by R. Keating. The combined analysis will be the subject of a PhD project by L. Cabrera at UNAM, Mexico. The outputs of this study will be in the form of a Doctoral thesis and two major papers.

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