Early Cretaceous lineages of monocot flowering plants

2000/04/04 by Kåre Bremer · 9 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Plant Diversity and Evolution #Plant and Fungal Species Descriptions #Plant and animal studies #Biology #Phylogenetic tree #Phylogenetics #Cretaceous #Evolutionary biology #Extant taxon #Plant evolution #Molecular clock #DNA sequencing #Paleontology #Genome #Gene #Genetics

paper · pdf · doi:10.1073/pnas.080421597

openalex publication_date 2000/04/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/15

Abstract

The phylogeny of flowering plants is now rapidly being disclosed by analysis of DNA sequence data, and currently, many Cretaceous fossils of flowering plants are being described. Combining molecular phylogenies with reference fossils of known minimum age makes it possible to date the nodes of the phylogenetic tree. The dating may be done by counting inferred changes in sequenced genes along the branches of the phylogeny and calculating change rates by using the reference fossils. Plastid DNA rbcL sequences and eight reference fossils indicate that approximately 14 of the extant monocot lineages may have diverged from each other during the Early Cretaceous >100 million years B.P. The lineages are very different in size and geographical distribution and provide perspective on flowering plant evolution.

Citations

• An Ordinal Classification for the Families of Flowering Plants
• Monocots: Systematics and Evolution
• East Gondwana ancestry of the sunflower alliance of families
• Phylogenetic Hypotheses for the Monocotyledons Constructed from rbcL Sequence Data

Cited by

• Out of Africa: Miocene Dispersal, Vicariance, and Extinction within Hyacinthaceae Subfamily Urgineoideae
• Molecular evidence on plant divergence times
• Gondwanan Origin of Major Monocot Groups Inferred from Dispersal-Vicariance Analysis
• Araceae from the Early Cretaceous of Portugal: Evidence on the emergence of monocotyledons
• Testing Deep Reticulate Evolution in Amaryllidaceae Tribe Hippeastreae (Asparagales) with ITS and Chloroplast Sequence Data
• Phylogeny and Molecular Evolution of Tricyrtis (Liliaceae s.l.) Inferred from Plastid DNA matK Spacer Nucleotide Sequences
• Potential novel hosts for the lily leaf beetle Lilioceris lilii Scopoli (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) in eastern North America
• Morphology and Angiosperm Systematics in the Molecular Era
• Monocotyledon [wikipedia]