Cargando…

Trying to Understand the Complicated Taxonomy in Amaranthus (Amaranthaceae): Insights on Seeds Micromorphology

Amaranthus is a genus taxonomically complex because of its high morphological variability, which led to nomenclatural disorders, misapplication of names, and misidentifications. Floristic and taxonomic studies on this genus are still incomplete, and many questions remain open. Seed micromorphology h...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Iamonico, Duilio, Hussain, Amara Noor, Sindhu, Arya, Saradamma Anil Kumar, Venugopalan nair, Shaheen, Shabnum, Munir, Mamoona, Fortini, Paola
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10005098/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36903848
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants12050987
_version_ 1784904996575248384
author Iamonico, Duilio
Hussain, Amara Noor
Sindhu, Arya
Saradamma Anil Kumar, Venugopalan nair
Shaheen, Shabnum
Munir, Mamoona
Fortini, Paola
author_facet Iamonico, Duilio
Hussain, Amara Noor
Sindhu, Arya
Saradamma Anil Kumar, Venugopalan nair
Shaheen, Shabnum
Munir, Mamoona
Fortini, Paola
author_sort Iamonico, Duilio
collection PubMed
description Amaranthus is a genus taxonomically complex because of its high morphological variability, which led to nomenclatural disorders, misapplication of names, and misidentifications. Floristic and taxonomic studies on this genus are still incomplete, and many questions remain open. Seed micromorphology has been shown to play an important role in the taxonomy of plants. Regarding Amaranthaceae and Amaranthus, investigations are rare, and they refer to one or a few species. With the primary aim to test if seed features are helpful in the taxonomy of Amaranthus, we here present a detailed SEM study on seed micromorphology in 25 Amaranthus taxa using morphometric methods. Seeds were collected from field surveys and herbarium specimens; 14 seed coat features (7 qualitative and 7 quantitative) were measured on 111 samples (up to 5 seeds per sample). The results obtained revealed that seeds micromorphology provides interesting new taxonomic data concerning some taxa (species and below ranks). In fact, we were able to distinguish a few seed types, including one or more taxa, i.e., blitum-type, crassipes-type, deflexus-type, tuberculatus-type, and viridis-type. On the other hand, seed features are not useful for other species, for example, those included in the deflexus-type (A. deflexus, A. vulgatissimus, A. cacciatoi, A. spinosus, A. dubius, and A. stadleyanus). A diagnostic key of the studied taxa is proposed. Subgenera cannot be distinguished using seed features, thus confirming the published molecular data. All these facts reveal, once again, the taxonomic complexity of the genus Amaranthus since, e.g., just a few seed types can be defined.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-10005098
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2023
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-100050982023-03-11 Trying to Understand the Complicated Taxonomy in Amaranthus (Amaranthaceae): Insights on Seeds Micromorphology Iamonico, Duilio Hussain, Amara Noor Sindhu, Arya Saradamma Anil Kumar, Venugopalan nair Shaheen, Shabnum Munir, Mamoona Fortini, Paola Plants (Basel) Article Amaranthus is a genus taxonomically complex because of its high morphological variability, which led to nomenclatural disorders, misapplication of names, and misidentifications. Floristic and taxonomic studies on this genus are still incomplete, and many questions remain open. Seed micromorphology has been shown to play an important role in the taxonomy of plants. Regarding Amaranthaceae and Amaranthus, investigations are rare, and they refer to one or a few species. With the primary aim to test if seed features are helpful in the taxonomy of Amaranthus, we here present a detailed SEM study on seed micromorphology in 25 Amaranthus taxa using morphometric methods. Seeds were collected from field surveys and herbarium specimens; 14 seed coat features (7 qualitative and 7 quantitative) were measured on 111 samples (up to 5 seeds per sample). The results obtained revealed that seeds micromorphology provides interesting new taxonomic data concerning some taxa (species and below ranks). In fact, we were able to distinguish a few seed types, including one or more taxa, i.e., blitum-type, crassipes-type, deflexus-type, tuberculatus-type, and viridis-type. On the other hand, seed features are not useful for other species, for example, those included in the deflexus-type (A. deflexus, A. vulgatissimus, A. cacciatoi, A. spinosus, A. dubius, and A. stadleyanus). A diagnostic key of the studied taxa is proposed. Subgenera cannot be distinguished using seed features, thus confirming the published molecular data. All these facts reveal, once again, the taxonomic complexity of the genus Amaranthus since, e.g., just a few seed types can be defined. MDPI 2023-02-21 /pmc/articles/PMC10005098/ /pubmed/36903848 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants12050987 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Iamonico, Duilio
Hussain, Amara Noor
Sindhu, Arya
Saradamma Anil Kumar, Venugopalan nair
Shaheen, Shabnum
Munir, Mamoona
Fortini, Paola
Trying to Understand the Complicated Taxonomy in Amaranthus (Amaranthaceae): Insights on Seeds Micromorphology
title Trying to Understand the Complicated Taxonomy in Amaranthus (Amaranthaceae): Insights on Seeds Micromorphology
title_full Trying to Understand the Complicated Taxonomy in Amaranthus (Amaranthaceae): Insights on Seeds Micromorphology
title_fullStr Trying to Understand the Complicated Taxonomy in Amaranthus (Amaranthaceae): Insights on Seeds Micromorphology
title_full_unstemmed Trying to Understand the Complicated Taxonomy in Amaranthus (Amaranthaceae): Insights on Seeds Micromorphology
title_short Trying to Understand the Complicated Taxonomy in Amaranthus (Amaranthaceae): Insights on Seeds Micromorphology
title_sort trying to understand the complicated taxonomy in amaranthus (amaranthaceae): insights on seeds micromorphology
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10005098/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36903848
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/plants12050987
work_keys_str_mv AT iamonicoduilio tryingtounderstandthecomplicatedtaxonomyinamaranthusamaranthaceaeinsightsonseedsmicromorphology
AT hussainamaranoor tryingtounderstandthecomplicatedtaxonomyinamaranthusamaranthaceaeinsightsonseedsmicromorphology
AT sindhuarya tryingtounderstandthecomplicatedtaxonomyinamaranthusamaranthaceaeinsightsonseedsmicromorphology
AT saradammaanilkumarvenugopalannair tryingtounderstandthecomplicatedtaxonomyinamaranthusamaranthaceaeinsightsonseedsmicromorphology
AT shaheenshabnum tryingtounderstandthecomplicatedtaxonomyinamaranthusamaranthaceaeinsightsonseedsmicromorphology
AT munirmamoona tryingtounderstandthecomplicatedtaxonomyinamaranthusamaranthaceaeinsightsonseedsmicromorphology
AT fortinipaola tryingtounderstandthecomplicatedtaxonomyinamaranthusamaranthaceaeinsightsonseedsmicromorphology