From cacti to carnivores: Improved phylotranscriptomic sampling and hierarchical homology inference provide further insight into the evolution of Caryophyllales

Premise of the study The Caryophyllales contain ~12,500 species and are known for their cosmopolitan distribution, convergence of trait evolution, and extreme adaptations. Some relationships within the Caryophyllales, like those of many large plant clades, remain unclear, and phylogenetic studies often recover alternative hypotheses. We explore the utility of broad and dense transcriptome sampling across the order for resolving evolutionary relationships in Caryophyllales. Methods We generated 84 transcriptomes and combined these with 224 publicly available transcriptomes to perform a phylogenomic analysis of Caryophyllales. To overcome the computational challenge of ortholog detection in s…