Hundreds of nuclear and plastid loci yield insights into orchid relationships

ABSTRACTPremise of the studyEvolutionary relationships in the species-rich Orchidaceae have historically relied on organellar DNA sequences and limited taxon sampling. Previous studies provided a robust plastid-maternal phylogenetic framework, from which multiple hypotheses on the drivers of orchid diversification have been derived. However, the extent to which the maternal evolutionary history of orchids is congruent with that of the nuclear genome has remained uninvestigated.MethodsWe inferred phylogenetic relationships from 294 low-copy nuclear genes sequenced/obtained using the Angiosperms353 universal probe set from 75 species representing 69 genera, 16 tribes and 24 subtribes. To test…