Ta. Hedderson et al., PHYLOGENETIC-RELATIONSHIPS OF BRYOPHYTES INFERRED FROM NUCLEAR-ENCODED RIBOSOMAL-RNA GENE-SEQUENCES, Plant systematics and evolution, 200(3-4), 1996, pp. 213-224
We investigate phylogenetic relationships among hornworts, liverworts
and mosses, and their relationships to other green plant groups, by an
alysis of nucleotide variation in complete 18s rRNA gene sequences of
three green algae, two homworts, seven liverworts, nine mosses, and si
x tracheophytes. Parsimony and maximum-likelihood analyses yield a sin
gle optimal tree in which the hornworts are resolved as the basal grou
p among land plants, and the liverworts and mosses are sister taxa tha
t together form the sister clade to the tracheophytes. This phylogeny
is internally robust as indicated by decay indices and by comparison (
using both parsimony and likelihood criteria) to topologies representi
ng five alternative hypotheses of bryophyte relationships. We discuss
some possible reasons for differences between the phylogeny inferred f
rom the rRNA data and those inferred from other character sets.