RESEARCH ARTICLE Plant evolution in alkaline magnesium-rich soils: A phylogenetic study of the Mediterranean genus Hormathophylla (Cruciferae: Alysseae) based on nuclear and plastid sequences Esteban Salmero n-SaÂnchez 1,2*, Javier Fuertes-Aguilar3, Stanislav SÏ paniel4,5, Francisco a1111111111 ID Javier PeÂrez-GarcõÂa1, Encarna Merlo1, Juan Antonio Garrido-Becerra1, Juan Mota1 a1111111111 a1111111111 1 Departamento de BiologõÂa y GeologõÂa, CEI.MAR and CECOUAL, Universidad de AlmerõÂa, AlmerõÂa, Spain, a1111111111 2 Departamento de BotaÂnica, Unidad de ConservacioÂn Vegetal, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain, a1111111111 3 Real JardõÂn BotaÂnico, CSIC, Madrid, Spain, 4 Institute of Botany, Plant Science and Biodiversity Centre, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovak Republic, 5 Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Prague, Czech Republic *
[email protected] OPEN ACCESS Citation: SalmeroÂn-SaÂnchez E, Fuertes-Aguilar J, Abstract SÏpaniel S, PeÂrez-GarcõÂa FJ, Merlo E, Garrido- Becerra JA, et al. (2018) Plant evolution in alkaline Habitats with alkaline edaphic substrates are often associated with plant speciation and magnesium-rich soils: A phylogenetic study of the diversification. The tribe Alysseae, in the family Brassicaceae, epitomizes this evolutionary Mediterranean genus Hormathophylla (Cruciferae: Alysseae) based on nuclear and plastid sequences. trend. In this lineage, some genera, like Hormathophylla, can serve as a good case for test- PLoS ONE 13(12): e0208307. https://doi.org/ ing the evolutionary framework. This genus is centered in the western Mediterranean. It 10.1371/journal.pone.0208307 grows on different substrates, but mostly on alkaline soils. It has been suggested that diver- Editor: Dong Hoon Shin, Seoul National University sification in many lineages of the tribe Alysseae and in the genus Hormathophylla is linked College of Medicine, REPUBLIC OF KOREA to a tolerance for high levels of Mg+2 in xeric environments.