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PREMISE: Bromeliaceae form a large, ecologically diverse family of angiosperms native to the New World. We use a bromeliad phylogeny based on eight plastid regions to analyze relationships within the family, test a new, eight-subfamily classification, infer the chronology of bromeliad evolution and invasion of different regions, and provide the basis for future analyses of trait evolution and rates of diversification. METHODS: We employed maximum-parsimony, maximum-likelihood, and Bayesian approaches to analyze 9341 aligned bases for four outgroups and 90 bromeliad species representing 46 of 58 described genera. We calibrate the resulting phylogeny against time using penalized likelihood applied to a monocot-wide tree based on plastid ndhF sequences and use it to analyze patterns of geographic spread using parsimony, Bayesian inference, and the program S-DIVA. RESULTS: Bromeliad subfamilies are related to each other as follows: (Brocchinioideae, (Lindmanioideae, (Tillandsioideae, (Hechtioideae, (Navioideae, (Pitcairnioideae, (Puyoideae, Bromelioideae))))))). Bromeliads arose in the Guayana Shield ca. 100 million years ago (Ma), spread centrifugally in the New World beginning ca. 16-13 Ma, and dispersed to West Africa ca. 9.3 Ma. Modern lineages began to diverge from each other roughly 19 Ma. CONCLUSIONS: Nearly two-thirds of extant bromeliads belong to two large radiations: the core tillandsioids, originating in the Andes ca. 14.2 Ma, and the Brazilian Shield bromelioids, originating in the Serro do Mar and adjacent regions ca. 9.1 Ma.

Original publication

DOI

10.3732/ajb.1000059

Type

Journal article

Journal

Am J Bot

Publication Date

05/2011

Volume

98

Pages

872 - 895

Keywords

Bayes Theorem, Biological Evolution, Bromeliaceae, DNA, Plant, Evolution, Molecular, Genes, Plant, Likelihood Functions, Molecular Sequence Data, NADH Dehydrogenase, Phylogeny, Plant Proteins, Plastids, Sequence Alignment, Sequence Analysis, DNA