Identifying a mysterious aquatic fern gametophyte
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- 作者：Fay-Wei Li ; Benito C. Tan ; Volker Buchbender ; Robbin C. Moran ; Germinal Rouhan ; Chun-Neng Wang and Dietmar Quandt
- 关键词：Aquarium ; DNA barcoding ; DNA ; based identification ; Gametophyte ; Fern ; Lomariopsis ; Lomariopsidaceae
- 刊名：Plant Systematics and Evolution
- 出版年：2009
- 出版时间：August, 2009
- 年：2009
- 卷：281
- 期：1-4
- 页码：77-86
- 全文大小：396.8 KB
文摘
S¨¹?wassertang, a popular aquatic plant that is sold worldwide in aquarium markets, has been long considered a liverwort because of its ribbon-like thallus. However, its antheridia are remarkably fern-like in morphology. To corroborate the hypothesis that S¨¹?wassertang is a fern gametophyte and to determine its closest relative, we have sequenced five chloroplast regions (rbcL, accD, rps4–trnS, trnL intron, and trnL-F intergenic spacer), applying a DNA-based identification approach. The BLAST results on all regions revealed that S¨¹?wassertang is a polypod fern (order: Polypodiales) with strong affinities to the Lomariopsidaceae. Our phylogenetic analyses further showed that S¨¹?wassertang is nested within the hemi-epiphytic fern genus Lomariopsis (Lomariopsidaceae) and aligned very close to L. lineata. Our study brings new insights on the unexpected biology of Lomariopsis gametophytes—the capacity of retaining a prolonged gametophytic stage under water. It is of great interest to discover that a fern usually known to grow on trees also has gametophytes that thrive in water.