Characters sampling at low taxonomic level - a phylogenetic analysis of species complex Poa sect. Dioicopoa.?

AAGESEN LONE; GIUSSANI, LILIANA MÓNICA; SCATAGLINI, MARÍA AMALIA; MORRONE, OSVALDO

Oaxaca

Jornada; XXV Willi Hennig Society Meeting; 2006

Willi Hennig Society

With the optimization of continuous characters now made possible within a cladistic context, phylogenetic studies that can proceed to analyze groups that have previously been untreatable such as species complexes in which the species are only defined through the variation of continuous characters. We explore character sampling in a species complex of bluegrasses, Poa sect. Dioicopoa, in which sexual dimorphism and the lack of adequate qualitative characters, complicate an analysis at species level. The analysis implies the addition of sequences data and the rescaling of the continuous characters in order to transform measurements into a comparable scale. Resampling methods suitable for detecting minor changes in branch support were used to evaluate the results.