Phylogeny of Sesuvioideae (Aizoaceae) – Biogeography, leaf anatomy and the evolution of C4 photosynthesis

Abstract Sesuvioideae (Aizoaceae) form a small subfamily of drought-tolerant plants exhibiting leaf succulence, halophytic ecology, and the C4 photosynthetic pathway. Sesuvioideae are sister to the species-rich subfamilies Ruschioideae, Mesembryanthemoideae and Aizooideae that contain many CAM lineages. This close relationship of CAM and C4 taxa identifies the Sesuvioideae as an important clade to address hypotheses of photosynthetic pathway evolution. This study presents a molecular phylogeny of Sesuvioideae based on five markers (atpB-rbcL spacer, rps16 intron, trnL-trnF spacer, petB-petD spacer, ITS) and 51 accessions representing all genera and 37 species. We determined carbon isotope d…