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Plant Physiol, December 2001, Vol. 127, pp. 1328-1333 SCIENTIFIC CORRESPONDENCE Plant Systematics in the Age of GenomicsThe New York Botanical Garden, 200 Street and Kazimiroff Blvd., Bronx, New York 10458-5126
As plant biologists enter a new era in which comparative genomics
promises to address fundamental questions in botany, such as unraveling
metabolic and regulatory networks, the inestimable value and usefulness
of robust systematic studies quickly become clear. In simplest terms,
systematic studies can indicate which genomes in the plant kingdom to
search, sample, and study for the answers to questions relating to the
evolution of chemical and physical structures and their synthesis or
ontogeny. After several model and crop species have been sequenced, the
next phase of plant genomics will necessarily build on new phylogenies
that are greatly assisted by molecular techniques and whose
interpretation and applications will be guided by "traditional"
botanical knowledge.
Plant systematics was long considered to
be an "artful science," but well before the application of
molecular techniques to systematics, semisubjective authority was
supplanted by rapidly developing analytical methods and the computers
that run them. In the age of genomics, the art of modern plant
systematics lies in its applications and its links to other
disciplines; conversely, the applications of genomics to an expanding
array of plant species will be grounded in plant systematics, itself
still based largely on field work and knowing the plants.
Much is new The special usefulness of molecular approaches in analyzing
phylogenetic relationships at higher ranks has resulted in still unresolved but clearly better and dramatically new classifications, discussed below. These developments, coupled with other advances in
phylogenetic analysis, now place systematics in a key position among
other disciplines in biology, with increasingly diverse and powerful
applications in investigations of biosynthetic and developmental
pathways, natural products, origins and migrations of evolutionary
lineages, and conservation. Whether it occupies the hub or spokes, more
than ever plant systematics is needed to make the genomics wheel roll.
The biggest non-news is that molecular techniques have in fact not
revolutionized methodologies in systematics. Instead, molecular data
have rather rapidly been accommodated in existing analytical methods
whose revolution News perhaps for non-systematists, but not for systematists, is a
greater need than ever before for traditional botanical knowledge and
activities. Field work, collections, diversity surveys, floras,
monographs, and conservation efforts still provide the primary means
for working with the physical materials needed for investigations in
systematics and genomics (e.g. fresh tissue for RNA extraction and
synthesis of cDNA expressed sequence tag libraries), as well as
for formulating hypotheses, interpreting the results, and making useful
applications of those results, thereby linking the genes to the whole
plants and the world outside them.
The field of plant systematics has undergone a renaissance during
the last 20 years. This is due primarily to the incorporation of
cladistic methodology and subsequently DNA sequence data into phylogenetic reconstruction, which is predicated on the recognition of
monophyletic ("natural") groups. Cladistics represents an approach whereby the data pertaining to terminals (in this discussion, taxonomic
groups) are analyzed using the criterion of parsimony to minimize the
number of ad hoc hypotheses needed to explain the pattern
inherent in the data. The results are represented as "trees" that
are termed "unrooted networks." If the same data set is again
analyzed by parsimony, the same answer will be obtained. When used for
the purposes of phylogenetic systematics, the tree is rooted between
the ingroup (the group under study) and the outgroup, i.e. the group
with which the ingroup is compared (compare with Schuh, 2000 Systematists use cladistics to produce phylogenetic trees that can be
used for purposes of phylogenetic classifications. Such trees must
remain as hypotheses because there is only one "true" evolutionary
tree, which is based upon a long history of life on Earth, and even if
we obtained that true tree we would not know it definitively because we
cannot directly observe that history. We can assume, however, that such
trees from phylogenetic analyses are nearer to the true tree than would
be a randomly generated tree, and these hypotheses of relationships
provide our best estimate of genealogy and may be used for starting
points for further research in systematics and for understanding the
biology of the organisms under study (see section below on useful Web
sites for links to phylogenetic studies, nomenclature, herbaria, and specialists).
These phylogenetic studies and the resulting trees have had a
substantial impact on systematists' hypotheses about plant
relationships and ultimately on our systems of classification. The new
cladograms of higher ranks, based largely on combined gene sequence
data from an international team of botanists, differ in a number of fundamental ways from past classification systems.
Perhaps more than any in the previous half century, the comprehensive
(down to the rank of family) classification system of flowering plants
by Cronquist (1981) It appears that a more natural (monophyletic) grouping of the
angiosperms would consist of the "eudicots" (see Fig.
1), with typically three pollen
apertures; the monocots; and the magnoliid dicots, comprising several
diverging lineages. This is harmonious with the formal higher rank
classification proposed recently by an international team of plant
systematists calling themselves the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (1998)
Phylogenetic studies already have direct applications in
agriculture, natural products chemistry, biomedical sciences, and other
disciplines. In the age of genomics, the breadth and power of these
applications will increase as interpretation of phylogenies helps to
identify those taxa for which genomic treatments will answer
fundamental and in some cases long-standing questions about metabolic
and regulatory networks in all the evolutionary corners of the plant
kingdom (e.g. Ohlrogge and Benning, 2000 The evolutionary origin of symbiosis between plants and nitrogen-fixing
bacteria living in root nodules represents an example of applications
in agriculture. Known to occur in only 10 different flowering plant
families, it had traditionally been thought that these families were
only distantly related to one another. In the new system of angiosperm
classification, however, all nitrogen-fixing angiosperms are members of
only four ordinal clades (Fabales, Cucurbitales, Rosales, and Fagales)
that are linked as a monophyletic group. This information suggests that
the predisposition for root-nodule symbiosis and nitrogen fixation in
angiosperms evolved only once (Soltis et al., 1995 Phylogenetic trees are useful also in directing research in natural
products chemistry. Taxol is a compound known only from the yew family
(Taxaceae). If we wish to look for additional sources of taxol and
other taxanes, rather than randomly sample the plant kingdom, we can
focus on the nearest relatives as understood from a phylogenetic tree
of the seed plants. This in turn leads us to investigate the
Podocarpaceae because current analyses indicate that this is the sister
group to the yew family, i.e. these two conifer families share a more
recent common ancestor with each other than either does to any other
plant family. That is indeed the case, and taxanes have recently been
reported in the Podocarpaceae (Stahlhut et al., 1999 Chemical information is often used in data sets for phylogenetic
analysis (e.g. Stevenson, 1990a Mustard oil glucosinolates are known to be produced in at least 15 different families of plants. Depending on the system of classification, the biochemical pathway for these secondary metabolites was thought to have arisen and then to have been lost on multiple occasions. Molecular phylogenetic information, however, indicates that
all mustard oil-producing families are part of the same ordinal clade,
Brassicales, with the exception of the genus Drypetes (a member of Malpighiales), indicating only two evolutionary origins for
mustard glucosinolates (Rodman et al., 1993
When morphological characters are used in a data matrix, they are
coded as states of a character based upon presumed evolutionary homology, and phylogenetic analysis can be used to examine their developmental equivalence. The example of the two origins of the mustard oils demonstrates the problems of character coding based upon
descriptors and of divorcing descriptors from process (Sattler, 1993 An example of reciprocal illumination concerns the origin of storage
products in the seeds of some monocotyledonous plants. There is a
storage tissue derived from cells of the nucellus occurring in some
monocots that is termed "perisperm" and is formed as storage tissue
instead of the more typical endosperm. Phylogenetic analyses of the
monocots using both morphological and molecular sequence data have
shown that perisperm has evolved three times within the monocots, thus
indicating that not all perisperm is the same or minimally had the same
history. Perisperm has been described for Acorus, the
putative sister taxon to the rest of the monocots, for
Hydatella, nested within the monocots, and for
Cyanastrum, also nested within the monocots in a different
clade from Hydatella. Recent work has demonstrated that the
perisperm of Acorus is derived from the epidermis of the
nucellus and that of Hydatella is derived from subepidermal
layers of the nucellus, while Cyanastrum in fact does not
even have perisperm but rather its seed storage tissue is derived from
the chalazal tissue of the ovule (Rudall, 2000 Clearly, the construction of phylogenetic trees, tempered by testing with reciprocal analysis, is a powerful tool for understanding the biology of plants. This is taking on increasing importance for our understanding of development and processes; in turn, this knowledge can be applied to various purposes that include improving agriculture, exploring natural products chemistry, and contributing to biomedical science. In the current age of genomics, the applications of phylogenetic studies constitute one of several major criteria for deciding which plant genomes to tackle next.
For future comparative genomics studies, the importance of
classification systems based on solid phylogenetic information cannot
be overemphasized. Zoologists have already recognized this fact and
have recently begun to debate which mammalian species should be
targeted for sequencing now that the human genome has been nearly
completed. Candidates for new model taxa include the mouse (Mus
musculus), rat (Rattus norvegicus), chimpanzee
(Pan troglodytes), and rhesus monkey (Macaca
mulatta). As O'Brien et al. (2001) The same approach should be applied to plants. With the Arabidopsis
genome sequenced (Arabidopsis Genome Initiative, 2000
In the genomics age, molecular techniques represent an immensely powerful resource that, surprising to some, greatly increases rather than obviates the need for non-molecular data sets, the botanists who can interpret them, and the means for generating them, i.e. field work, floristic studies, herbarium collections, and the building blocks of basic taxonomy, morphology and anatomy. Sequences and cladograms are merely tools, and one has to know the plants in order to pose the questions, structure the sampling, select the characters (including which genes), and interpret the results. As the examples of applications discussed above show, cladograms often pose as many questions as they answer; there is no reciprocal illumination if there is no light on the other end. Plant systematics provides molecular and phylogenetic investigations
with the physical and informational materia prima for the
data sets that make them tick, and this can be achieved only through
greatly increased activity in basic taxonomic and floristic research,
and vastly accelerated and better-coordinated programs of field work
and plant collections. A useful relationship between systematics and
those molecular and phylogenetic investigations depends heavily on
accurately identified specimens, well-prepared ancillary collections
(silica-dried material and others), and carefully planned sampling of
taxa and/or populations representing the fullest possible range of
geography, variation, and phylogeny in the group. Monographs and floras
are the most efficient way of generating the needed information and
specimens, as well as putting into practice the extensive phylogenetic
realignments now under way. Taxonomists are needed to execute the
numerous nitty-gritty nomenclatural changes involved (Hammel,
2001 Returning to the example of the cycads, participation in long-term
floristic projects (e.g. Stevenson, 1991
Floristic work, built on taxonomy and phylogenetic analyses that often incorporate geographic data, drives plant conservation. Data on the distributions, habitat preferences, and population structures of organisms identify centers of endemism and of diversity, as well as rare and/or threatened species; this constitutes the first layer of information for setting conservation priorities. Sound phylogenetic trees can establish another layer of information and
analysis for maximizing the conservation of genetic diversity, the
basis of biodiversity. Habitat destruction and threats of extinction
continue while the major realignments of taxa highlight how much of the
plant kingdom is still a biological black hole in many ways: as pointed
out above, to date most plant taxa used in some way as model taxa fall
in one clade, so entire sectors of plant diversity (e.g. families or
genera endemic to a small region) could go extinct before we have any
notion of significant differences in chemistry, developmental
processes, or even gene regulation. Because we cannot realistically
save all areas from habitat destruction, phylogenetic studies can help us make intelligent choices that will allow us to conserve areas with
the highest genetic and hence taxic diversity. It should also allow us
to identify evolutionarily significant species whose DNA should be
stored in banks; this will complement existing efforts to create DNA
banks for rare and threatened species (e.g. Randell and Morden, 1999
During the 1980s, plant systematics underwent a decade-long
revolution in methodology that has enabled the discipline to adapt itself to absorb and analyze the subsequent avalanche of molecular data
sets, and now molecular techniques are part of the mainstream of plant
systematics. In the age of genomics, the horizons of plant systematics
have vastly expanded. New phylogenetic realignments and diversifying
links to other disciplines give systematic studies an increasingly
important role in targeting species for genomic treatments and other
research that will help elucidate Useful Web Sites A number of Web sites help link plant systematics more effectively to other disciplines; until relatively recently, even the "correct" name of a plant was the domain of a rather limited group of specialists who can navigate taxonomic nomenclature. Members of the scientific community as a whole now have far better access to accepted names and taxonomic synonyms. They can examine the most recent substantiated phylogenetic realignments and the literature that produces them. They can search more easily for the closest relatives of a given taxon and/or representatives of a given plant group in a geographic region. They can locate specialists in a given taxonomic group and botanists working in a given geographic area. The following are some of the more important Web sites for these purposes:
Received August 28, 2001; accepted September 25, 2001. * Corresponding author; e-mail ddaly{at}nybg.org; fax 718-817-8648.
www.plantphysiol.org/cgi/doi/10.1104/pp.010788.
This article has been cited by other articles:
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