The first complete plastome of Mimusops coriacea (A. DC.) Miq. (Sapotaceae).

Mimusops coriacea (A. DC.) Miq. (Sapotoideae, Sapotaceae, Ericales) is native to Madagascar and the Comoro Islands. This species is cultivated in many countries around the world and grows on sand in coastal vegetation. Here we sequenced, assembled, and annotated the first complete chloroplast genome of M. coriacea. The newly assembled chloroplast was analyzed with other available chloroplasts of Sapotaceae. Our results found a general conserved structure. The complete chloroplast genome has 159,689 bp, including 133 genes distributed in four regions: a large single-copy region of 88,887 bp, a small single-copy region of 18,618 bp, and two inverted repeats of 26,092 bp each. Our maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree was generated with 80 protein-coding genes and recovered a monophyletic Sapotaceae sister to a clade formed by Ebenaceae + Primulaceae. In our analysis, Mimusops coriacea clustered with the other eight species of Sapotaceae included in the study.

Calophyllaceae plastomes, their structure and insights in relationships within the clusioids.

A complete chloroplast genome is not yet available for numerous species of plants. Among the groups that lack plastome information is the clusioid clade (Malpighiales), which includes five families: Bonnetiaceae, Calophyllaceae, Clusiaceae, Hypericaceae, and Podostemaceae. With around 2200 species, it has few published plastomes and most of them are from Podostemaceae. Here we assembled and compared six plastomes from members of the clusioids: five from Calophyllaceae (newly sequenced) and one from Clusiaceae. Putative regions for evolutionary studies were identified and the newly assembled chloroplasts were analyzed with other available chloroplasts for the group, focusing on Calophyllaceae. Our results mostly agree with recent studies which found a general conserved structure, except for the two Podostemaceae species that have a large inversion (trnK-UUU-rbcL) and lack one intron from ycf3. Within Calophyllaceae we observed a longer LSC and reduced IRs in Mahurea exstipulata, resulting in some genic rearrangement, and a short inversion (psbJ-psbE) in Kielmeyera coriacea. Phylogenetic analyses recovered the clusioids and the five families as monophyletic and revealed that conflicts in relationships reported in the literature for the group agree with nodes concentrating uninformative or conflicting gene trees. Our study brings new insights about clusioid plastome architecture and its evolution.

Phylogeny, divergence times, and diversification in Calophyllaceae: Linking key characters and habitat changes to the evolution of Neotropical Calophylleae.

The clusioid clade comprises five monophyletic families: Bonnetiaceae, Calophyllaceae, Clusiaceae s.s., Hypericaceae, and Podostemaceae. Even though the circumscription of these families is well established, phylogenetic relationships within some families remain unresolved. This study aims to infer phylogenetic relationships within the Neotropical Calophylleae based on a broad sampling of taxa and a multilocus approach. We then use our phylogenetic framework as basis to investigate the evolution and biogeography of Calophylleae and diversification shifts in Calophyllaceae. To reconstruct the phylogeny of the Neotropical Calophylleae, we used five plastid (matK, ndhF, rbcL, psbA-trnH, and trnK), two mitochondrial (matR and rps3), and two nuclear (EMB2765 and ITS) markers, including previously published and newly generated sequences. We sampled 74 species, increasing sampling of Neotropical taxa by 500%. Our phylogenetic hypothesis for Calophyllaceae provides additional support for the monophyly of all genera and allowed us to identify four main clades: Calophyllum, Kayea, Mammea, and the Neotropical clade. The Neotropical clade includes three main lineages, a small clade composed of Clusiella and Marila, and a large HaCaKi clade (i.e., Haplocarpa, Caraipa, and Kilmeyera) that is sister to Mahurea exstipulata. The evolution of three morphological traits (i.e., fleshy fruits, anther glands, and winged seeds) were shown to be associated with changes in evolutionary dynamics in Calophyllaceae, while a biome shift was detected in Kielmeyera, affecting net diversification within this genus. Major geological and climatic events such as the Andean uplift and a gradual decrease in temperatures seem to have influenced diversification rates within the Neotropical Calophylleae.