Revision of Passiflora Subgenus Decaloba ... - Passion Flowers

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the molecular study was not feasible due to limited sample availability and
expense of analysis. There were also several polymorphic sites evident in the
ITS sequences for several of the species within supersection Cieca, further
increasing the need for more infraspecific sampling. Most importantly, the
complex evolutionary history (involving hybridization and polyploidy) of several of
the entities within the group has undoubtedly had a significant effect on both data
sets, increasing the amount of incongruity in the analyses.
In an attempt to overcome the difference in sample sizes between the
morphological and molecular data sets, additional cladistic analyses were
undertaken in which the operational taxonomic units were reduced to those for
which both molecular and morphological data were available. Separate analyses
of the reduced morphological and molecular data sets resulted in the production
of four equally parsimonious trees that were 224 steps long and 1,638 equally
parsimonious trees that were 332 steps in length, respectively. The consensus
trees from both of these analyses were compared and were conspicuously
incongruent in their topologies. In addition, there were significant changes in the
resulting phylogenies, as compared to the original analyses, that were likely due
to decreased (and likely inadequate) taxon sampling. I have chosen not to
combine my morphological and molecular data sets because of this
incongruence and the knowledge that complex biological processes are likely
influencing the pattern of diversity within Passiflora supersection Cieca.
On a more positive note, the phylogenetic hypotheses based on the
morphological and molecular data sets for supersection Cieca agree in several