Relationships Among Phaseoloid Legumes Based on Sequences from Eight Chloroplast Regions

Generic level relationships in phaseoloid legumes have received much attention using chloroplast DNA markers. However, despite this attention not all relationships are yet well-resolved. This study includes trnL-F sequences from across a wide sample of phaseoloid legumes as well as seven additional chloroplast DNA loci (rbcL, atpB, trnK/matK, rpl2, clpP, rps16, and ycf4) analyzed separately and in combination. Together, these data provide support for many relationships generally consistent with, but only weakly supported, in earlier studies. Some major discordant phylogenetic results were found in our separate analyses; for example, ycf4 sequences group Glycine and Teramnus with strong support; however, the combined analysis of the remaining seven loci found incongruent groupings (Glycine and Psoraleeae genera; Teramnus and Amphicarpaea) also with strong support. Network analysis of ycf4 revealed that the conflicting signal (relative to the other seven loci) came from first and second codon positions. These positions also showed significant rate acceleration, together indicating that selection driving convergent molecular evolution is the likely cause of the signal in ycf4, rather than shared history. The major clades within the phaseoloid legumes supported by our analysis are discussed.