Kunli Xiang

• Chinese Academy of Sciences

A comparative karyomorphological analysis was performed on Actaea acuminata, A. asiatica, and A. erythrocarpa. The karyotype of A. acuminata was re-examind; its formula proved to be 2n = 16 = 10m + 2sm + 2st + 2t. This species' karyotype was found to differ from that of A. spicata (2n = 16 = 10m + 4sm + 2t), thus allowing us to propose a species st...

Background and Aims Understanding the biogeographical patterns and processes underlying the distribution of diversity within the Northern Hemisphere has fascinated botanists and biogeographers for over a century. However, as a well-known centre of species diversity in the Northern Hemisphere, whether East Asia acted as a source and/or a sink of pla...

The southeastward extrusion of Indochina along the Ailao Shan–Red River shear zone (ARSZ) is one of two of the most prominent consequences of the India–Asia collision. This plate-scale extrusion has greatly changed Southeast Asian topography and drainage patterns and effected regional climate and biotic evolution. However, little is known about how...

Papaveraceae, commonly known as the poppy family, contains many species with horticultural and/or pharmaceutical importance and has been the subject of various molecular studies. However, a widely accepted tribal classification for Papaveraceae remains lacking. In this study, we used a sampling covering all 48 of the currently recognized genera of...

Background Expansion and contraction of inverted repeats can cause considerable variation of plastid genomes (plastomes) in angiosperms. However, little is known about whether structural variations of plastomes are associated with adaptation to or occupancy of new environments. Moreover, adaptive evolution of angiosperm plastid genes remains poorly...

A comparative karyotype analysis of four species of yellow-flowered Eranthis sect. Eranthis, i.e., E. bulgarica, E. cilicica, E. hyemalis, and E. longistipitata from different areas, has been carried out for the first time. All the studied specimens had somatic chromosome number 2n = 16 with basic chromosome number x = 8. Karyotypes of the investig...

Living fossils are evidence of long-term sustained ecological success. However, whether living fossils have little molecular changes remains poorly known, particularly in plants. Here, we have introduced a novel method that integrates phylogenomic, comparative genomic, and ecological niche modeling analyses to investigate the rate of molecular evol...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2022.897843.].

The deciduous broad-leaved forests (DBLFs) cover large temperate and subtropical high-altitude regions in the Northern Hemisphere. They are home to rich biodiversity, especially to numerous endemic and relict species. However, we know little about how this vegetation in the Northern Hemisphere has developed through time. Here, we used Actaea (Ranun...

Rapid diversification of a group is often associated with exploiting an ecological opportunity and/or the evolution of a key innovation. However, how the interplay of such abiotic and biotic factors correlates with organismal diversification has been rarely documented in empirical studies, especially for organisms inhabiting drylands. Fumarioideae...

Trichosporeae is the largest and most taxonomically difficult tribe of Gesneriaceae due to its diverse morphology. Previous studies have not clarified the phylogenetic relationships within this tribe on several DNA markers, including the generic relationships within subtribes. Recently, plastid phylogenomics have been successfully employed to resol...

Background: Tartary buckwheat (Fagopyrum tataricum) is an important food and medicine crop plant, which has been cultivated for 4000 years. A nuclear genome has been generated for this species, while an intraspecific pan-plastome has yet to be produced. As such a detailed understanding of the maternal genealogy of Tartary buckwheat has not been th...

Angiosperms, a trigger for the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution (KTR), underwent a rapid expansion and occupied all the environments during the Mid-Upper Cretaceous. Yet, Cretaceous biogeographic patterns and processes underlying the distribution of angiosperm diversity in the Northern Hemisphere are still poorly known. Here, we elucidated the bio...

Unlike the typical single circular structure of most animal mitochondrial genomes (mitogenome), the drastic structural variation of plant mitogenomes is a result of a mixture of molecules of various sizes and structures. Obtaining the full panoramic plant mitogenome is still considered a roadblock in evolutionary biology. In this study, we develope...

Thalictrum is a phylogenetically and economically important genus in the family Ranunculaceae, but is also regarded as one of the most challengingly difficult in plants for resolving the taxonomical and phylogenetical relationships of constituent taxa within this genus. Here, we sequenced the complete plastid genomes of two Thalictrum species using...

Carnation (Dianthus caryophyllus) is one of the most popular ornamental flowers in the world. Although numerous studies on carnations exist, the underlying mechanisms of flower color, fragrance, and the formation of double flowers remain unknown. Here, we employed an integrated multi‐omics approach to elucidate the genetic and biochemical pathways...

The Asian lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) has a history of cultivation in Asia dating back over 3,000 years where it has been an important food crop producing edible rhizomes and seeds as well as flowers of great aesthetic and cultural value. Here, we de novo assembled the plastomes of 316 lotus accessions including five North American lotus (N. lutea) an...

The plastid is an essential organelle in autotrophic plant cells, descending from free-living cyanobacteria and acquired by early eukaryotic cells through endosymbiosis roughly one billion years ago. It contained a streamlined genome (plastome) that is uniparentally inherited and non-recombinant, which makes it an ideal tool for resolving the origi...

The evolutionary history of organisms with poor dispersal abilities usually parallels geological events. Collisions of the Indian and Arabian plates with Eurasia greatly changed Asian topography and affected regional and global climates as well as biotic evolution. However, the geological evolution of Asia related to these two collisions remains de...

Premise of the research. Floral synorganization is a structural feature of many speciose angiosperm taxa, and is considered as a morphological innovation paving the way for evolutionary diversification. Staphisagria is sister to the remaining Delphinieae, the only lineage of Ranunculaceae characterized by zygomorphic flowers. We aim at providing a...

The subtropical evergreen broadleaved forests (EBLFs) inhabit large areas of East Asia and harbor rich biodiversity and high endemism. However, the origin and evolution of biodiversity of East Asian subtropical EBLFs remain poorly understood. Here, we used Mahonia (Berberidaceae), an eastern Asian-western North American disjunct evergreen genus, to...

With this paper we continue a new annual series, the main purpose of which is to make significant floristic findings from Russia and neighboring countries more visible in Russia and abroad. In total, this paper presents new records for 24 vascular plant species from 4 Eurasian countries, obtained during field explorations, as well as during taxonom...

Temperate South American–Asian disjunct distributions are the most unusual in organisms, and challenging to explain. Here, we address the origin of this unusual disjunction in Lardizabalaceae using explicit models and molecular data. The family (c.40 species distributed in ten genera) also provides an opportunity to explore the historical assembly...

A new endemic species, Eranthis tanhoensis sp. nov., is described from the Republic of Buryatia and Irkutsk Province, Russia. It belongs to Eranthis section Shibateranthis and is morphologically similar to E. sibirica and E. stellata. An integrative taxonomic approach, based on cytogenetical, molecular and biochemical analyses, along with morpholog...

The goldthread genus Coptis includes 15 species disjunctly distributed in eastern Asia and North America. Here, we provide a dated phylogeny for the genus with all 15 species. Our results indicate that Coptis contains two strongly supported clades (I and II). Clade I consists of subg. Coptis and sect. Japonocoptis of subg. Metacoptis; clade II comp...

Aim The integration of palaeontological and phylogenetic data can improve our understanding in the spatio‐temporal evolutionary processes of living organisms. However, how best to use fossil data in divergence time estimation and ancestral range reconstruction remains challenging. Here, we integrated palaeontological and molecular data to investiga...

The paper presents new records of 24 vascular plant species from 11 Eurasian countries. One taxon (Orobanche laxissima) is reported from Armenia; one (Epipactis condensata) from Azerbaijan; two (Phragmites americanus, Polygala multicaulis) from Belarus; one (Stipa cauca-sica) from Egypt; one (Puccinellia hauptiana) from Kyrgyzstan; three (Aquilegia...

Trolliusaustrosibiricus Erst & Luferov, sp. nov. , a new species from Russian South Siberia is described and illustrated. This new species is endemic to Western and Central Siberia. Morphologically, it is close to the East Asian species T.chinensis and T.macropetalus . However, it differs from the aforementioned species due to the morphology of the...

Background Numerous studies have favored dispersal (colonization) over vicariance (past fragmentation) events to explain eastern Asian-North American distribution patterns. In plants, however the disjunction between eastern Asia and western North America has been rarely examined using the integration of phylogenetic, molecular dating, and biogeogra...

Astragalus is one of the largest genera of angiosperms and a characteristic component of the steppes and mountains of North Asia. Here, we used scanning electron microscopy to investigate the seed morphology of 56 species of the genus from North Asia. In Astragalus, seed color varies from yellow–green, greenish brown, reddish brown to grayish brown...

Mitotic metaphase chromosomes of 14 species were examined in root tips of seedlings. Method is described in Smirnov (1968). Chromosome numbers in literature were checked using CCDB, version 1.45 (Rice & al., 2015).

High species diversity may result from recent rapid speciation in a ‘cradle’ and/or the gradual accumulation and preservation of species over time in a ‘museum’1,2. China harbours nearly 10% of angiosperm species worldwide and has long been considered as both a museum, owing to the presence of many species with hypothesized ancient origins3,4, and...

The paper presents new records for 29 vascular plant species from 12 Eurasian countries. Seven taxa (Agave sisalana, Austrocylindropuntia subulata, Lagurus ovatus subsp. nanus, Opuntia stricta, Orobanche serbica, Oxalis articulata, Vitis × instabilis) are reported from Albania, one (Allium carinatum) from the Europaean part of Russia, six (Dipsacus...

Two new species, Aquilegia xinjiangensis and A. hebeica from northern China, are here described and illustrated. Additionally four species, A. amurensis, A. flabellata, A. kamelinii and A. vicaria are recorded for the country for the first time. The identification key and diagnostic characters of all Aquilegia representatives from China including t...

Premise of research. The Turkish endemic Pseudodelphinium turcicum (Ranunculaceae) was described by Vural et al. (2012) based on a single population found in the salt lake basin of Tuz Gölü, Konya Province. Although the authors noticed morphological similarities between the plants and Delphinium or Garidella, they highlighted unusual features, whic...

The monophyly of Delphinium subg. Delphinium remains unresolved, owing to the controversial systematic position of the monotypic, eastern Asian endemic D. sect. Anthriscifolium. The other section of the subgenus, D. sect. Delphinium, is distributed in the Irano-Turanian (IT) region extending westward to the Mediterranean Basin. Recently, a new genu...

The paper presents new records for 28 vascular plant species from 14 Eurasian countries. Five taxa (Catabrosa capusii, Poa albertii, Poa intricata, Poa pseudoaltaica, Poa sergievskajae) are reported from Kazakhstan, three (Ranunculus pseudomonophyllus, Ranunculus smirnovii, Ranunculus turczaninovii) from Mongolia, three (Panicum barbipulvinatum, St...

East Asia is characterized by high levels of species diversity and endemism. However, the biogeographical patterns and processes underlying the distribution of biodiversity within the area are still poorly known. In this study, we used plastid (matK, trnL-F, and trnH-psbA) and nuclear (ITS) DNA sequences to investigate the historical biogeography o...

CORDIACEAE Cordia glabrata (Mart.) A.DC., 2n = 52; Brazil, Bahia, D.D. Vieira 393. Cordia rufescens A.DC., 2n = ca. 28; Brazil, Bahia, D.D. Vieira 447. Cordia trichotoma (Vell.) Arráb. ex Steud., 2n = ca. 72; Brazil, Bahia, D.D. Vieira 380. Varronia curassavica Jacq., 2n = 18; Brazil, Bahia, J.V. dos Santos 33 & al. Varronia globosa Jacq., 2n = 18;...

We reconstructed a phylogenetic tree of Chinese vascular plants (Tracheophyta) using sequences of the chloroplast genes atpB, matK, ndhF, and rbcL and mitochondrial matR. We produced a matrix comprising 6098 species and including 13 695 DNA sequences, of which 1803 were newly generated. Our taxonomic sampling spanned 3114 genera representing 323 fa...

The rise of angiosperms has been regarded as a trigger for the Cretaceous revolution of terrestrial ecosystems. However, the timeframe of the rise angiosperm-dominated herbaceous floras (ADHFs) is lacking. Here, we used the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae) as a proxy to provide insights into the rise of ADHFs. An integration of phylogenetic, molecu...

Coptis (Ranunculaceae) contains 15 species and is one of the pharmaceutically most important plant genera in eastern Asia. Understanding of the evolution of morphological characters and phylogenetic relationships within the genus is very limited. Here, we present the first comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the genus based on two plastid and on...