ARS | Publication request: Taxonomic changes in Solanum section Petota

Submitted to: Plant and Animal Genome Conference
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: November 15, 2010
Publication Date: December 5, 2010
Citation: Spooner, D.M. 2010. Taxonomic changes in Solanum section Petota [abstract]. Plant and Animal Genome Conference. W526.

Technical Abstract: In 1990, the latest comprehensive taxonomic monograph of Solanum section Petota Dumort. recognized 236 species partitioned into 21 series. Of these, 227 were tuber-bearing and nine non-tuber-bearing. NSF-sponsored research has drastically altered knowledge of their species boundaries and interrelationships. The series contains diploids (2n = 2x = 24), tetraploids (2n = 4x= 48), and hexaploids (and rare triploids and pentaploids). We have approached problems of species boundaries and interrelationships of sect. Petota with morphological phenetics in replicated field trials in the US and Peru, field studies in natural habitats, AFLPs, plastid DNA restriction site data and plastid deletion data, DNA sequences of nuclear orthologs waxy, nitrate reductase, and conserved orthologous set (COSII) markers, and herbarium specimen data, including an examination of nearly all type specimens. Three species Hawkes placed in sect. Petota are now removed to sect. Etuberosum (S. etuberosum, S. fernandezianum, S. palustre), two species removed to sect. Lycopersicoides (S. lycopersicoides, S. sitiens), and two species to section Juglandifolia (S. juglandifolium, S. ochranthum). Within sect. Petota, most series are unsupported, replaced by a three clade classification), with some of the polyploids supported as allopolyploids with parents among these clades. Our final taxonomic treatment, in preparation in on-line form (http://www.nhm.ac.uk/solanaceaesource), and as printed monographs, is recognizing less than half (100) of the 227 tuber-bearing species of Hawkes, with great reductions in the traditionally recognized series Conicibaccata and the Solanum brevicaule complex. These comprehensive treatments are encompassing all components of traditional monographs, to include keys, synonyms, typifications, descriptions, images of representative types, distribution maps, line drawings of all recognized species, and over 15,500 locality records of herbarium specimens.