Format: ORAL

Leonardo Gaspar, Feng Song, Ning Fu, Lu Jin, Frank Guzmn, Asuncin Cano, Mnica Arakaki, Xue-Jun Ge

1 División Botánica, Museo de Historia Natural - UNMSM, Lima, Perú. 2 Key Laboratory of Plant Resources Conservation and Sustainable Utilization, South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China. 3 Universidad Científica del Sur, Lima, Perú.

The genus Oxalis is a rather notable and constitutive plant group in Peruvian lomas formations, displaying conspicuous traits to cope with aridity. The flora of this seasonal ecosystem is highly endemic, much like its inhabiting Oxalis members, thus placing this genus as optimal for testing evolutionary and biogeographic hypotheses. While elucidating the diversity and distribution of Oxalis along the lomas extension (latitude from 6 to 18 S), a total of 11 species were identified, largely showing connections with western Andean slopes. Two main lineages were identified and further examined, corresponding to succulent herbs in section Carnosae (subg. Oxalis) and sub-shrubs in section Thamnoxys (subg. Thamnoxys). The phylogenetic reconstruction revealed differing evolutionary stories for each lineage, directly linked with alternative adaptive strategies and geographical colonizing patterns. This study also allowed filling information gaps related to understudied and endemic taxa, that, in addition to the non-monophyletic arrangement detected in some endemic species, exposes the need for a taxonomic update in the genus. Furthermore, a set of genomic resources, such as plastidial markers and nuclear SSRs, were generated for future phylogenetic and population genetic studies, mainly centered in the broadly distributed sect. Carnosae. Lastly, these results provide valuable insights in the understanding of the origin of plant diversity in Peruvian coastal lomas.