Avanços na sistemática do clado Geminata (Solanum L., Solanaceae): filogenômica e taxonomia

Abstract

In this work, some colleagues and I investigated the evolutionary relationships of a group of plants belonging to the genus Solanum of the family Solanaceae, known as the Geminata clade. Additionally, we studied the diversity of these plants in a megadiverse country like Colombia. Over the past two decades, the genus Solanum has been intensively studied both taxonomically and phylogenetically, leading to significant advances in understanding its species' diversity and evolutionary history. Despite this progress, the Geminata clade, considered one of the largest lineages within Solanum, lacks a well-supported phylogenetic hypothesis, and the morphological delimitation of its species remains a major challenge for botanists. The Geminata clade of Solanum includes approximately 160 species, primarily distributed in Neotropical regions, with only one occurring outside the Americas. Colombia, Peru, and Brazil are the countries with the highest number of species from this clade. In this study, we present a phylogenomic analysis of the Geminata clade, including slightly over 40% of the recognized species, and discuss our findings in morphological and historical-evolutionary contexts. Furthermore, we examined the diversity of species within the clade in Colombia, summing 56 species in total, making substantial contributions to their understanding, including a taxonomic key, the description of four new species, and the identification of two additional ones, as well as the assignment of IUCN categories to all of them.