Phylogenomics of the Palm Tribe Lepidocaryeae (Calamoideae: Arecaceae) and Description of a New Species of Mauritiella

Abstract

Abstract— The palm tribe Lepidocaryeae (Arecaceae) comprises seven genera and 51 currently accepted species that are distributed in lowland tropical forests and savannas across Africa and the Americas. Subtribal relationships within Lepidocaryeae have been a persistent challenge, limiting our understanding of its systematics, morphology, and biogeography. Several aspects make the tribe an ideal system to study plant evolution and diversity: it is well-represented in the fossil record as a prolific pollen producer, its continental diversity contradicts common biodiversity patterns of lower species richness in Africa in comparison to South America, and it contains one of the most abundant Amazonian tree species, Mauritia flexuosa. Here, we investigated the systematics of the tribe by sampling 122 individuals representing 42 species (82% of the tribe), using target sequence capture. We recovered nearly 10,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms from nuclear and plastid DNA across 146 target sequences to separately infer a phylogenomic tree. Our results strongly support inter-generic and inter-specific relationships, where a majority of nodes were resolved with over 90% bootstrap support. We also identify strong phylogenetic support for the recognition of a new species from central and south Amazonia, Mauritiella disticha. The distichous phyllotaxy is diagnostic of the species within the genus. Rare and currently only known from the middle-lower Madeira River basin in the state of Amazonas, Brazil, M. disticha is restricted to open vegetation and forest edges growing in white sand habitats with saturated or well-drained soils. Our preliminary red list assessment suggests its threatened status to be vulnerable (VU). We use our phylogenomic inference to define and contextualize systematic relationships in the tribe, and present a formal species description.