Systematics and Climatic Preferences of Bertolonieae and Trioleneae

Abstract

Bertolonieae s.l. has been characterized as herbaceous plants with angular capsules. Despite morphological similarities, molecular data showed that the lineages within it were not homologous, and the traditional diagnostic characters have several different origins in Melastomataceae. Recently, Bertolonieae s.l. was recircumscribed to include only Bertolonia, and a new tribe, Trioleneae, was described encompassing both Monolena and Triolena. Bertolonieae is endemic to eastern Brazil with 36 taxa. The two genera of Trioleneae collectively occur in southern Mexico, Central America, the foothills of the Andes, and western Amazonia, with Monolena and Triolena consisting of 16 and 27 species, respectively. In this chapter, we present information on the systematics of Bertolonieae and Trioleneae, with a compilation of new information relevant to their taxonomy and biology. Moreover, we compared the climatic niches of both, in order to test if they developed similar morphological features by occupying similar habitats in different regions, as pointed out by a previous study. The climatic niche models with the envelopes for the genera within both tribes showed that their climatic preferences overlap. The similar climatic envelopes are mostly related to precipitation and, together with similar habitats in shaded and moist understory in rainforests from different regions in the Neotropics could have led to the aforementioned convergent evolution of morphological features.