Plantago campestris (Plantaginaceae), a rare new species from southern Brazil, supported by phylogenomic and morphological evidence

Gustavo Hassemer; Elliot M Gardner; Nina Rønsted

doi:10.7717/peerj.11848

Plantago campestris (Plantaginaceae), a rare new species from southern Brazil, supported by phylogenomic and morphological evidence

PeerJ. 2021 Aug 25:9:e11848. doi: 10.7717/peerj.11848. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Gustavo Hassemer¹, Elliot M Gardner^{2

3}, Nina Rønsted²

Affiliations

¹ Câmpus de Três Lagoas, Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso do Sul, Três Lagoas, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil.
² National Tropical Botanical Garden, Kalãheo, HI, United States of America.
³ International Center for Tropical Botany, Florida International University, Miami, FL, United States of America.

Abstract

High-throughput sequencing, when combined with taxonomic expertise, is a powerful tool to refine and advance taxonomic classification, including at the species level. In the present work, a new species, Plantago campestris, is described out of the P. commersoniana species complex, based on phylogenomic and morphological evidence. The main morphological characters that distinguish the new species from P. commersoniana are the glabrous posterior sepals and the slightly broader leaves. The new species is known from only three localities, all in natural high-elevation grasslands in Paraná and Santa Catarina states, southern Brazil. According to the IUCN criteria new species should be assessed as Endangered (EN). We present field photographs of P. campestris and related species, and we provide an identification key to the species previously included within the circumscription of P. commersoniana.

Keywords: Endangered species; High-throughput sequencing; Identification key; Plantagineae; Plantago commersoniana; Taxonomy.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) through a doctoral scholarship granted to Gustavo Hassemer from 2014 to 2017 (process BEX 13765/13-2). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.