Identifying the generic limits of the Cheilanthoid genus Doryopteris

Morphology-based delimitation of genera in the Cheilanthoid ferns has proved to be problematic and understanding of the phylogeny and relationships amongst Cheilanthoid ferns based on morphological characters has posed even further difficulties, owing perhaps in large part to adaptation by many taxa to xeric habitats, as well as convergent evolution. It is only now with the application of DNA sequence data that relationships of species and genera are becoming clear. Here, we present results of cpDNA sequence data from species that have been traditionally placed in the genus Doryopteris and, based on both these results, and morphological and distribution data, this study helps clarify the concept of the genus Doryopteris its position within the Cheilanthoid ferns and the status of Lytoneuron. As a result, three genera are redefined: Doryopteris, Lytoneuron and Ormopteris.

中国碎米蕨类及其相关类群的系统学研究

通过形态学、解剖学、孢粉学、植物地理学及分子系统学等方面的研究，探讨了中国碎米蕨类及其相关类群的系统关系，并对它们的分类进行了修订。 1.解剖学 对碎米蕨类及相关类群36个种的叶表皮特征进行了研究，结果发现该性状对于划分大的类群具有一定的系统学意义。大多数中国蕨科成员如粉背蕨属、旱蕨属和黑心蕨属等连同裸子蕨科中的泽泻蕨属和金毛裸蕨属在叶表皮性状上比较一致。它们之间的亲缘关系较近，是碎米蕨类成员。金粉蕨属、粉叶蕨属、翠蕨属和铁线蕨属与上述类群不同，其上表皮细胞或上下表皮细胞均明显加长，但气孔器仍同碎米蕨类植物一样，为无规则型、极细胞型或腋下细胞型。在所研究的类群中，只有凤尾蕨属和Anopteris的气孔器为聚合型。 2.孢粉学 在光镜和扫描电镜下对中国蕨科、裸子蕨科和凤尾蕨科等83种 (含变种) 植物的孢子进行了观察。根据孢子的颜色、结构和表面纹饰等可将其分成3种类型：大多数中国蕨科成员如粉背蕨属等和裸子蕨科中的泽泻蕨属和金毛裸蕨属的孢子同属第一种类型，颜色较深，表面纹饰由周壁形成。珠蕨属和凤丫蕨属的孢子属第二种类型，颜色较淡，周壁薄，由外壁和周壁共同形成表面纹饰。金粉蕨属、凤尾蕨属、翠蕨属和粉叶蕨属的孢子为第三种类型，颜色较浅，由外壁形成表面纹饰的基本轮廓，具明显的赤道翼。从孢粉学的角度来看，中国蕨科和裸子蕨科都是不自然的。中国蕨属和薄鳞蕨属的孢子形态同粉背蕨属相似，应并入后者。另外，同属新旧世界的种类其孢子纹饰往往有明显的区别, 可能代表了不同的类群。 3.分子系统学 测定了碎米蕨类及相关类群34种植物的rbcL 和trnL-F序列，并结合GenBank上下载的相关资料进行分析。结果发现中国蕨科和裸子蕨科都不是自然类群。在系统树上，Cheilanthes、隐囊蕨属、粉背蕨属、旱蕨属、黑心蕨属等同裸子蕨科中的泽泻蕨属和金毛裸蕨属等聚在一起，构成碎米蕨群。珠蕨属、凤丫蕨属和Llavea则形成另一分支，不是碎米蕨类成员。金粉蕨属在分支图上与南亚的Actiniopteris形成姐妹群，并与凤尾蕨属、粉叶蕨属和翠蕨属等关系近缘，放入凤尾蕨类应更为合适。 系统分析的结果表明，旧世界分布的类群与美洲的同属植物大都关系疏远，如黑心蕨属、金毛裸蕨属和Cheilanthes等。另外，亚洲分布的中国蕨属、粉背蕨属、碎米蕨属、薄鳞蕨属、隐囊蕨属和拟旱蕨属Mildella的成员聚在一起，它们之间的系统关系因为形成了多歧分支而没有得到很好的解决。但是，薄鳞蕨属、中国蕨属和大理碎米蕨等同粉背蕨属的成员聚在一起，并入后者应更为合理。另外，宜昌旱蕨与碎米蕨属的成员关系近缘，支持将前者转入碎米蕨属。 4.植物地理学 碎米蕨类植物的间断分布非常明显。泽泻蕨和戟叶黑心蕨等在形态特征上与美洲的同属种类有明显的区别，可能代表了不同的类群。大多数亚洲碎米蕨类成员如粉背蕨属、中国蕨属和薄鳞蕨属等以中国西南部的横断山区或喜马拉雅为分布中心，可能与喜马拉雅山的隆起有关。 5.分类处理 综合各方面的研究成果，作者认为国产碎米蕨类包括6个属3个群：黑心蕨属、旱蕨属、粉背蕨属、碎米蕨属、拟泽泻蕨属和拟金毛裸蕨属。《中国植物志》中记载的隐囊蕨属、毛旱蕨和旱蕨类成员因其系统学位置不清，暂时作为独立的群处理。 在野外考察和大量标本（包括模式）考证的基础上，对国产碎米蕨类及其相关类群 (特别是粉背蕨属) 进行了修订, 澄清了一些种的分类问题。发现1新种，对1新变种进行了拉丁文描述，使其名称有效。提出新组合5个，另有6种7变种被首次归并。

Norsesquiterpene Glycosides in Bracken Ferns (Pteridium esculentum and Pteridium aquilinum subsp wightianum) from Eastern Australia: Reassessed Poisoning Risk to Animals.

Austral bracken Pteridium esculentum contains three unstable norsesquiterpene glycosides: ptaquiloside, ptesculento-side, and caudatoside, in variable proportions. The concentration of each of the glycosides was determined in this study as their respective degradation products, pterosin B, pterosin G and pterosin A, by HPLC-UV analysis. Samples of P. esculentum collected from six sites in eastern Australia contained up to 17 mg of total glycoside/g DW, with both ptaquiloside and ptesculentoside present as major components accompanied by smaller amounts of caudatoside. Ratios of ptaquiloside to ptesculentoside varied from 1:3 to 4:3, but in all Australian samples ptesculentoside was a significant component. This profile differed substantially from that of P. esculentum from New Zealand, which contained only small amounts of both ptesculentoside and caudatoside, with ptaquiloside as the dominant component. A similar profile with ptaquiloside as the dominant glycoside was obtained for Pteridium aquilinum subsp. wightianum (previously P. revolutum) from northern Queensland and also P. aquilinum from European sources. Ptesculentoside has chemical reactivity similar to that of ptaquiloside and presumably biological activity similar to that of this potent carcinogen. The presence of this additional reactive glycoside in Australian P. esculentum implies greater toxicity for consuming animals than previously estimated from ptaquiloside content alone.

A linear sequence of extant families and genera of lycophytes and ferns

Throughout the history of the classification of extant ferns (monilophytes) and lycophytes, familial and generic concepts have been in great flux. For the organisation of lycophytes and ferns in herbaria, books, checklists, indices and spore banks and on the internet, this poses a problem, and a standardized linear sequence of these plants is therefore in great need. We provide here a linear classification to the extant lycophytes and ferns based on current phylogenetic knowledge; this provides a standardized guide for organisation of fern collections into a more natural sequence. Two new families, Diplaziopsidaceae and Rhachidosoraceae, are here introduced.

VISUAL OBJECT TRACKING VIA RANDOM FERNS BASED CLASSIFICATION

Designing a robust algorithm for visual object tracking has been a challenging task since many years. There are trackers in the literature that are reasonably accurate for many tracking scenarios but most of them are computationally expensive. This narrows down their applicability as many tracking applications demand real time response. In this paper, we present a tracker based on random ferns. Tracking is posed as a classification problem and classification is done using ferns. We used ferns as they rely on binary features and are extremely fast at both training and classification as compared to other classification algorithms. Our experiments show that the proposed tracker performs well on some of the most challenging tracking datasets and executes much faster than one of the state-of-the-art trackers, without much difference in tracking accuracy.

The evolutionary history of ferns inferred from 25 low-copy nuclear genes.

UNLABELLED: • PREMISE OF THE STUDY: Understanding fern (monilophyte) phylogeny and its evolutionary timescale is critical for broad investigations of the evolution of land plants, and for providing the point of comparison necessary for studying the evolution of the fern sister group, seed plants. Molecular phylogenetic investigations have revolutionized our understanding of fern phylogeny, however, to date, these studies have relied almost exclusively on plastid data.• METHODS: Here we take a curated phylogenomics approach to infer the first broad fern phylogeny from multiple nuclear loci, by combining broad taxon sampling (73 ferns and 12 outgroup species) with focused character sampling (25 loci comprising 35877 bp), along with rigorous alignment, orthology inference and model selection.• KEY RESULTS: Our phylogeny corroborates some earlier inferences and provides novel insights; in particular, we find strong support for Equisetales as sister to the rest of ferns, Marattiales as sister to leptosporangiate ferns, and Dennstaedtiaceae as sister to the eupolypods. Our divergence-time analyses reveal that divergences among the extant fern orders all occurred prior to ∼200 MYA. Finally, our species-tree inferences are congruent with analyses of concatenated data, but generally with lower support. Those cases where species-tree support values are higher than expected involve relationships that have been supported by smaller plastid datasets, suggesting that deep coalescence may be reducing support from the concatenated nuclear data.• CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrates the utility of a curated phylogenomics approach to inferring fern phylogeny, and highlights the need to consider underlying data characteristics, along with data quantity, in phylogenetic studies.

Variation in arsenic accumulation - Hyperaccumulation in ferns and their allies

A range of fern species (45) and their allies, Equisetum (5) and Selaginella (2) species and Psilotum nudum were screened for their ability to hyperaccumulate arsenic, to develop a phylogenetic understanding of this phenomenon. A number of varieties (5) of a known arsenic hyperaccumulator Pteris cretica were additionally included in this study. This study is the first to report members of the Pteris genus that do not hyperaccumulate arsenic, Pteris straminea and tremula. A phylogenetic basis for arsenic accumulation in ferns was investigated. Some orders can accumulate more arsenic than others. Although members of the Equisetales and Blechnales did not hyperaccumulate arsenic, they still accumulated relatively high levels in their fronds, approaching 100 mg kg^-1 when grown on a soil dosed with 100 mg kg^-1 arsenic. Arsenic hyperaccumulation was identified as a phenomenon at the extreme range of fern arsenic accumulation. Ferns that exhibit arsenic hyperaccumulation arrived relatively late in terms of fern evolution, as this character is not exhibited by primitive ferns or their allies.

Negative density dependence and environmental heterogeneity effects on tree ferns across succession in a tropical montane forest.

Although tree ferns are an important component of temperate and tropical forests, very little is known about their ecology. Their peculiar biology (e.g., dispersal by spores and two-phase life cycle) makes it difficult to extrapolate current knowledge on the ecology of other tree species to tree ferns. In this paper, we studied the effects of negative density dependence (NDD) and environmental heterogeneity on populations of two abundant tree fern species, Cyathea caracasana and Alsophila engelii, and how these effects change across a successional gradient. Species patterns harbor information on processes such as competition that can be easily revealed using point pattern analysis techniques. However, its detection may be difficult due to the confounded effects of habitat heterogeneity. Here, we mapped three forest plots along a successional gradient in the montane forests of Southern Ecuador. We employed homogeneous and inhomogeneous K and pair correlation functions to quantify the change in the spatial pattern of different size classes and a case-control design to study associations between juvenile and adult tree ferns. Using spatial estimates of the biomass of four functional tree types (short- and long-lived pioneer, shade- and partial shade-tolerant) as covariates, we fitted heterogeneous Poisson models to the point pattern of juvenile and adult tree ferns and explored the existence of habitat dependencies on these patterns. Our study revealed NDD effects for C. caracasana and strong environmental filtering underlying the pattern of A. engelii. We found that adult and juvenile populations of both species responded differently to habitat heterogeneity and in most cases this heterogeneity was associated with the spatial distribution of biomass of the four functional tree types. These findings show the effectiveness of factoring out environmental heterogeneity to avoid confounding factors when studying NDD and demonstrate the usefulness of covariate maps derived from mapped communities.

Flora of Illinois, containing keys for identification of flowering plants and ferns.

no.7

Flora of Illinois, containing keys for the identification of the flowering plants and ferns, by George Neville Jones ...

no.2