Abstract:

【Objective】 Intergeneric phylogenetic relationship of Dendranthema (DC.) Des Moul., Ajania Poljakov and their allies are still unresolved due to the restriction of plant materials and complicated geographic distribution. In order to resolve the phylogeny of these groups and lay a foundation for the breeding of some important cultivated plants in this tribe such as chrysanthemum, Amplified Fragment Length Polymorphism (AFLP) was applied in this research. 【Method】 The phylogenetic relationships of subtribe Artemisiinae endemic to eastern Asia and its allies including 50 taxa were analyzed using amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers with near-infrared fluorescence-labeled primers. Phylogenetic searches were respectively performed by Unweight Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Mean (UPGMA) using SPSS 11.0 and maximum parsimony analysis (MP) with PAUP* 4.0b10. 【Result】 Nine primer set combinations were used in this investigation, and a total of 1936 AFLP fragments were detected, of which 1695 were polymorphic (87.6%), indicating considerable genetic variation at the species level. High genetic differentiation not only among all the taxa but also respectively among Dendranthema or Ajania was detected. 【Conclusion】 The Dendranthema-Ajania clade was the most important cluster of the phylogenetic tree. At the same time, this clade was chiefly divided into two sub-clades. (1) one corresponds to Dendranthema, Arctanthemum and a few species of Ajania that was further separated from two groups respectively including a part of Dendranthema and one or two species of Ajania, (2) another to a majority of taxa of Ajania and Opisthopappus. These two sub-clades were sister to each other. The results indicated that Dendranthema and Ajania maybe parallely evolved from common ancestors where A. myriantha and A. khartensis should be closer to Dendranthema than other taxa in Ajania, and Ajania pacifica and A. shiwogiku were more advanced taxa in this genus, Opisthopappus once belonging to subtribe Tanacetinae may be closer to subtribe Artemisiinae, however, radiate or rare discoid Brachanthemum was excluded from this group. The present phylogeny suggests that a revision of this scheme should be necessary, in which A. salicifolia and A. variifolia should be transferred to Phaeostigma.

Key words: Dendranthema')">Dendranthema, Ajania, Artemisiinae, AFLP, phylogeny, intergeneric relationship