title: Chloroplast phylogeny indicates that bryophytes are monophyletic.
abstract: Opinions on the basal relationship of land plants vary considerably and no phylogenetic tree with significant statistical support has been obtained. Here, we report phylogenetic analyses using 51 genes from the entire chloroplast genome sequences of 20 representative green plant species. The analyses, using translated amino acid sequences, indicated that extant bryophytes (mosses, liverworts, and hornworts) form a monophyletic group with high statistical confidence and that extant bryophytes are likely sisters to extant vascular plants, although the support for monophyletic vascular plants was not strong. Analyses at the nucleotide level could not resolve the basal relationship with statistical confidence. Bryophyte monophyly inferred using amino acid sequences has a good statistical foundation and is not rejected statistically by other data sets. We propose bryophyte monophyly as the currently best hypothesis.
authors.affiliation: National Institute for Basic Biology, Okazaki, Japan.
authors.forename: Tomoaki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nishiyama
authors.forename: Paul G
authors.initials: PG
authors.lastname: Wolf
authors.forename: Masanori
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kugita
authors.forename: Robert B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Sinclair
authors.forename: Mamoru
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sugita
authors.forename: Chika
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Sugiura
authors.forename: Tatsuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Wakasugi
authors.forename: Kyoji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yamada
authors.forename: Koichi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yoshinaga
authors.forename: Kazuo
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yamaguchi
authors.forename: Kunihiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ueda
authors.forename: Mitsuyasu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hasebe
mesh_terms: D044002:Bryophyta / Q000235:genetics*; D002736:Chloroplasts / Q000235:genetics*; D018742:DNA, Chloroplast; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny
chemical_list: D018742:DNA, Chloroplast