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The mulberry genus, Morus L. (Moraceae), has long been taxonomically
difficult, and its species circumscription has only been defined recently.
This genus comprises ca. 16 species distributed across Asia and the
Americas, yet its biogeographic history remains poorly understood. In this
study, we reconstructed the phylogeny and explored the biogeographic
history of Morus using a combination of newly generated and previously
published Hyb-Seq data. Our nuclear phylogeny recovered three
well-supported geographic clades of Morus and showed that M. notabilis
(China) is sister to the American clade plus the Asian clade. Multiple
reticulation events among species of Morus and extensive incomplete
lineage sorting (ILS) likely explain the difficulties in inferring
phylogenetic relationships within the genus. Divergence time estimation
indicated that Morus originated at the Eocene–Oligocene boundary, and
current lineages started to diverge during the early Miocene, there is
ambiguity surrounding the ancestral area with the two most likely regions
being Sino-Himalaya or the Americas. Biogeographic inference and the
fossil record suggest that Morus might have experienced extensive local
extinction events during the Tertiary. Morus has expanded its
distributional range through two dispersals from the Sino-Himalayan and
Sino-Japanese regions to Southeast Asia. In summary, our new phylogenetic
scheme and the biogeographic history presented here provide an essential
foundation for understanding species relationships and the evolutionary
history of Morus.
145 views reported since publication in 2023.