The calamoid palms 🌴 have over 500 species spread across the world, but their higher-level relationships were a bit of a mystery. Until now.

Out today in #MolecularPhylogeneticsAndEvolution:

A robust phylogenomic framework for the calamoid palms https://t.co/JiCbSUlheH

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First some background info, so that you know what we are talking about:

Calamoid palms look a bit like snakes 🐍 (don't they!?!), because their fruits are covered in overlapping scales. And with their often fierce spines, they are equally fearsome. 😱

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They are classified into 17 genera, 10 subtribes and 3 tribes. They have an amazing variety of growth forms, from stemless to climbing to tree habit. 🌱🌴

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But as I said, their relationships have been a bit of a mystery. Here's the varying relationships previous studies found over the last 20 years.

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We tackled this mystery with a phylogenomic approach: we sampled almost a thousand genes (a hundred times more than previous studies!) of 75 species representing all calamoid tribes, subtribes and genera.

The resulting data matrix is pretty massive...

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With all this data, we were able to reconstruct the higher-level relationships with new confidence, and these results were stable no matter what method we used (we tried out quite a few...). Here's the strict consensus tree from all eight species trees we made.

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How strong is gene tree conflict in our dataset?

For relationships among tribes and subtribes, a clear majority of gene trees supported the main topology. That's why we think that our results are very robust on that level.

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However, in subtribes Ancistrophyllinae and Plectocomiinae, there was a lot of gene tree conflict - similar proportions of gene trees support the 3 different possible relationships among genera.

Why? Hybridisation? Incomplete lineage sorting?

Further research needed!

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Finally, a huge thanks to my fantastic supervisors @BillJBaker, @w_eiserhardt, @Chomicki_G and Simon Hiscock (@OxfordPlants), and all other (equally great) co-authors: @SidonieBellot, @RowanSchley, @tlpcouvreur, and palm legends John Dransfield and Andrew Henderson.

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If you want to read more, feel free to use the below link for free access to the paper - it will work until 13 March 2021.

https://t.co/JiCbSUlheH

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Rig Ved 1.36.7

To do a Namaskaar or bow before someone means that you are humble or without pride and ego. This means that we politely bow before you since you are better than me. Pranipaat(प्राणीपात) also means the same that we respect you without any vanity.

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Surrendering False pride is Namaskaar. Even in devotion or bhakti we say the same thing. We want to convey to Ishwar that we have nothing to offer but we leave all our pride and offer you ourselves without any pride in our body. You destroy all our evil karma.

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We bow before you so that you assimilate us and make us that capable. Destruction of our evils and surrender is Namaskaar. Therefore we pray same thing before and after any big rituals.

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तं घे॑मि॒त्था न॑म॒स्विन॒ उप॑ स्व॒राज॑मासते ।
होत्रा॑भिर॒ग्निं मनु॑षः॒ समिं॑धते तिति॒र्वांसो॒ अति॒ स्रिधः॑॥

Translation :

नमस्विनः - To bow.

स्वराजम् - Self illuminating.

तम् - His.

घ ईम् - Yours.

इत्था - This way.

उप - Upaasana.

आसते - To do.

स्त्रिधः - For enemies.

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अति तितिर्वांसः - To defeat fast.

मनुषः - Yajman.

होत्राभिः - In seven numbers.

अग्निम् - Agnidev.

समिन्धते - Illuminated on all sides.

Explanation : Yajmans bow(do Namaskaar) before self illuminating Agnidev by making the offerings of Havi.

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