Format: ORAL

Nabasmita Malakar1. 2., GudasalamaniRavikanth1, K. Praveen Karanth3, Ganesan Rengaian1

1 Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bangalore, India 2 Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, Karnataka, India 3 Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India

We investigated the phylogeny and biogeography of the basal angiosperm group Persea (Lauraceae) that comprises eight accepted genera i.e., 1) Alseodaphne 2) Alseodaphnopsis 3) Apollonias 4) Dehaasia 5) Machilus 6) Nothaphoebe 7) Persea and 8) Phoebe. In India, Persea group is distributed in low-elevation evergreen forests to broad leaved temperate forests of Himalayas and mid-elevation evergreen forests of Western Ghats, south India. We aim to understand the biogeographic origins of the Persea group and to decipher the times and modes of evolution in the Indian subcontinent compared to the Asian region. Two nuclear and one chloroplast gene marker are sequenced for ca. 100 samples collected across Northeast region and Western Ghats of India. We mapped the sequences of Indian Persea group in global dataset. Phylogenetic relationships were reconstructed using maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference methods. Divergence time estimated using BEAST 2.4.8. and Ancestral geographical ranges performed using BIOGEOBEARS. The Persea group has diverged around ~55.3 (95% highest posterior density (HPD): 41.4 69.9) million years ago (mya) in China. We expect the probable divergence time of Persea group in India is early-mid Eocene. Also, molecular study shows the Apollonias arnottii, single known species of the genus globally, has to be shifted to the genus Phoebe. Phylogenetic tree we developed also supports the Persea group is not monophyletic. The Persea group requires in-depth taxonomic study of flower and fruit collections to resolve all the clades of different genera globally. This is the first attempt to understand the phylogenetic relationship and historical biogeography Indian Persea group in the global phylogeny.