Setting the evolutionary timeline: Tillandsia landbeckii in the Chilean Atacama Desert

• Published in: Plant systematics and evolution Vol. 307; no. 3
• Main Authors: Möbus, Johanna, Kiefer, Christiane, Quandt, Dietmar, Barfuss, Michael H., Koch, Marcus A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Vienna Springer Vienna 01-06-2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Arid climates; Aridity; Biological evolution; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Deoxyribonucleic acid; Deserts; DNA; Evolution; Fog; Genomes; Life Sciences; Living at its dry limits - Tillandsiales in the Atacama Desert; Miocene; Nucleotide sequence; Original Article; Phylogeny; Plant Anatomy/Development; Plant Ecology; Plant Sciences; Plant species; Plant Systematics/Taxonomy/Biogeography; Plants; Pleistocene; Tillandsia; Vegetation; Vegetation type; Water supply; Atacama Desert; Plastome; Divergence time; lomas; Chile; Atacama desert
• ISSN: 0378-2697; 1615-6110; 2199-6881
• DOI: 10.1007/s00606-021-01760-5

The Chilean Atacama Desert is among the oldest deserts of the world. Here,
Tillandsia landbeckii
is forming a unique vegetation type known as
Tillandsia
lomas. This vegetation consists in its typical configuration of one single vascular plant species only and forms regular linear structures in a sloped landscape and is largely depending on fog occurrence as dominant source of water supply. Without developing a typical root system, there are only few other terrestrial
Tillandsia
species growing on bare sand in Chile and Peru such as
T. marconae
,
T. virescens
,
T. purpurea
or
T. latifolia
. Although phylogenetic evidence is limited, convergent evolution of this unique growth behavior is evident. The predominantly arid and hyper-arid climate exists since the Early Miocene, which raises the question about timing of
T. landbeckii
evolutionary history. Phylogenomic analyses using whole plastome sequence data highlight the onset of diversification in
T. landbeckii
approximately 500,000 years ago. We also demonstrate subsequent secondary genetic contact with
T. purpurea
during the Late Pleistocene using DNA sequence data and genome size estimates, which resulted into the formation of
T. marconae
.