TAXON 61 (2) • April 2012: 437–455 Funk & al. • Phylogeny and biogeography of Liabeae Phylogeny and biogeography of the tribe Liabeae (Compositae subfamily Cichorioideae) Vicki A. Funk, Carol Kelloff & Raymund Chan U.S. National Herbarium, Department of Botany, Smithsonian Institution MRC 166, P.O. Box 37012, Washington D.C. 20013, U.S.A. Author for correspondence: Vicki A. Funk,
[email protected] Abstract The tribe Liabeae (Compositae) contains ca. 175 species distributed in 18 genera and its members occupy a variety of habitats in the Andes of South America as well as in Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies. The tribe is recognizable by a combination of morphological characters. DNA sequence data from the nuclear ribosomal ITS region and three chloroplast regions (trnL-F, 3′ end of ndhF, matK; a total of more than 5 kb of sequence data) were used to infer a phylogeny. The data were analyzed using maximum parsimony, maximum likelihood, and Bayesian inference. The results support the monophyly of the tribe and show a consistent placement for all genera except Cacosmia. Four well-supported clades are recovered in the remainder of the tribe, all recognized as subtribes. Liabineae (Ferreyranthus, Dillandia, Oligactis, Sampera, Liabum) are the sister group of the rest of the tribe. Sinclairineae (Sinclairiopsis and Sinclairia with segregates Liabellum and Megaliabum) are the sister group of Munnoziinae (Chrysactinium nested inside Munnozia s.l.) plus Paranepheliinae (Stephenbeckia, Micro liabum, Pseudonoseris, Paranephelius, Chionopappus, Philoglossa, Erato). Cacosmia is placed as the sister group of either all the rest of the tribe or of subtribe Liabineae; morphologically its characters are either autapomorphic or plesiomorphic.