3rd Annual Academic Symposium - Krystal Payne

The genus Nototrichium (Amaranthaceae) contains three species of shrubs to small trees endemic to the Hawaiian archipelago. Previous molecular studies have shown that Nototrichium is closely related to the widespread genus Achyranthes. Some researchers have hypothesized that the Norfolk Island endemic Achyranthes arborescens represents a taxon sister to Nototrichium due to similarities in floral morphology and woody habit. To date no molecular studies have been conducted that have investigated the origin of Nototrichium with respect to Achyranthes. The goal of our research was to analyze the biogeography and evolutionary history of Nototrichium through the construction of a phylogeny of Nototrichium and Pacific Achyranthes. DNA from all species of Nototrichium occurring on each Hawaiian island and four species of Pacific Achyranthes was extracted from leaf materials obtained from field collections, herbarium specimens, and DNA libraries. The Internal Transcribed Spacer sequences were amplified and sequenced. Maximum Parsimony and Maximum Likelihood analyses were used to estimate the phylogenetic relationships among species of Nototrichium and Achyranthes. Our results demonstrated that Nototrichium represents a monophyletic lineage derived from within Achyranthes. From our current data we show that Achyranthes japonica, a species with invasive tendencies distributed across East Asia, and not Achyranthes arborescens, is sister to Nototrichium. Within the genus Nototrichium our results show that the widespread Nototrichium sandwicense is paraphyletic with respect to other species in the genus. Additional gene regions and species will be investigated in future research to further elucidate the relationships among the species of Nototrichium.