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. 2021 Mar 11;11(9):4520-4531.
doi: 10.1002/ece3.7347. eCollection 2021 May.

The importance of environmental conditions in maintaining lineage identity in Epithelantha (Cactaceae)

David Aquino  1 , Alejandra Moreno-Letelier  1 , Miguel A González-Botello  2 , Salvador Arias  1
Affiliations

The importance of environmental conditions in maintaining lineage identity in Epithelantha (Cactaceae)

David Aquino et al. Ecol Evol. .

Abstract

The use of environmental variables to explain the evolution of lineages has gained relevance in recent studies. Additionally, it has allowed the recognition of species by adding more characters to morphological and molecular information. This study focuses on identifying environmental and landscape variables that have acted as barriers that could have influenced the evolution of Epithelantha species and its close genera.Our results show that soil pH, isothermality, temperature seasonality, and annual precipitation have a significant phylogenetic signal for Epithelantha. Soil type and landforms are also relevant as ecological barriers that maintain the identity of Epithelantha species.The variables associated with the soil (pH) have influenced the evolution of Epithelantha and probably in other genera of Cactaceae. Additionally, Epithelantha is frequent in the piedmont and haplic kastanozems. Bioclimatic variables reinforce the recognition of E. micromeris, and E. cryptica as independent species. Therefore, ecology can be considered as a factor to explain the high level of endemism in Cactaceae.

Keywords: Cactaceae; Epithelantha; ancestral state reconstruction; bioclimatic variables; soil variables; species delimitation.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
(a) Distribution of Epithelantha and closely related genera, based on georeferenced records for this work. (b) Distribution of species within Epithelantha
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Tree calibrated for Epithelantha and allied genera (Cacteae, Cactaceae) applying Bayesian inference. The bold values on the branches correspond to the posterior probability values and the values in square brackets on the nodes indicate the approximate age range of divergence
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Correlograms between: (a) Soil type and genus; (b) Soil type and species of Epithelantha; (c) Landform and genus; (d) Landform and species of Epithelantha. Positive correlations are shown in blue colors and negative in red colors. Residuals are shown in the right hand side of each plot
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Ancestral character state reconstruction for four environmental variables whose phylogenetic signal was significant
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
Ancestral character state reconstruction for three environmental variables whose phylogenetic signal was not significant
FIGURE 6
FIGURE 6
Ancestral character state reconstruction of soil types and landforms for Epithelantha and sister genera
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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