Stefan Wanke

Goethe University Frankfurt · Institute of Ecology, Evolution and Diversity

Plastid genomes of photosynthetic flowering plants are usually highly conserved in both structure and gene content. However, the plastomes of parasitic and mycoheterotrophic plants may be released from selective constraint due to the reduction or loss of photosynthetic ability. Here we present the greatly reduced and highly divergent, yet functiona...

Identifying orthologous molecular markers that potentially resolve relationships at and below species level has been a major challenge in molecular phylogenetics over the past decade. Non-coding regions of nuclear low- or single-copy markers are a vast and promising source of data providing information for shallow-scale phylogenetics. Taking advant...

Amborella trichopoda is strongly supported as the single living species of the sister lineage to all other extant flowering plants, providing a unique reference for inferring the genome content and structure of the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of living angiosperms. Sequencing the Amborella genome, we identified an ancient genome duplication...

Pollination of several angiosperms is based on deceit. In such systems, the flowers advertise a reward that ultimately is not provided. We report on a previously unknown pollination/mimicry system discovered in deceptive Aristolochia rotunda (Aristolochiaceae). Pollinators were collected in the natural habitat and identified. Flower scent and the v...

Extreme haustorial parasites have long captured the interest of naturalists and scientists with their greatly reduced and highly specialized morphology. Along with the reduction or loss of photosynthesis, the plastid genome often decays as photosynthetic genes are released from selective constraint. This makes it challenging to use traditional plas...

Five species of the Holarctic genus Schizohelea occurring in Europe and North Africa are reviewed, diagnosed and illustrated. These are S. leucopeza (Meigen, 1804), S. incerta (Clastrier, 1963), S. algeriana Szadziewski, Dominiak, Rumišek et Rupp, sp. nov., S. clastrieri Szadziewski, Dominiak, Rumišek et Rupp, sp. nov. and S. withersi Szadziewski,...

Background and Aims Ornamental hortensias are bred from a reservoir of over 200 species in the genus Hydrangea s.l. and are valued in gardens, households and landscapes across the globe. The phenotypic diversity of hortensia cultivars, hybrids and wild relatives is mirrored by their genomic variation, with differences in genome size, base chromosom...

Veraison marks the transition from berry growth to berry ripening and is a crucial phenological stage in grapevine (Vitis vinifera): the berries become soft and begin to accumulate sugars, aromatic substances, and, in red cultivars, anthocyanins for pigmentation, while the organic acid levels begin to decrease. These changes determine the potential...

Premise Many plastomes of autotrophic Piperales have been reported to date, describing a variety of differences. Most studies focused only on a few species or a single genus, and extensive, comparative analyses have not been done. Here, we reviewed publicly available plastome reconstructions for autotrophic Piperales, reanalyzed publicly available...

Linalool, a monoterpene, is one of the most important aroma compounds in grapevine leading to a floral fragrance in ripe fruits and later wines. Total concentrations of free linalool were measured in standardized wine samples during four consecutive years in 150 genotypes of a 'Calardis Musqué' × 'Villard Blanc' cross segregating for this trait. A...

Societal Impact Statement Clarifying species status for closely related taxa with similar and overlapping morphology is important for planning conservation efforts. Conservation of Rafflesia goes beyond merely saving species from extinction. It has far‐reaching societal impacts that touch on scientific discovery, cultural heritage, economic develop...

Multi-chromosomal mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) structures have repeatedly evolved in many lineages of angiosperms. However, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. The mitogenomes of three genera of Balanophoraceae, namely Lophophytum, Ombrophytum and Rhopalocnemis, have already been sequenced and assembled, all showing a highly multi-chromo...

Background: To date, plastid genomes have been published for all but two holoparasitic angiosperm families. However, only a single or a few plastomes represent most of these families. Of the approximately 40 genera of holoparasitic angiosperms, a complete plastid genome sequence is available for only about half. In addition, less than 15 species a...

Understanding the spatial and temporal frameworks of species diversification is fundamental in evolutionary biology. Assessing the geographic origin and dispersal history of highly diverse lineages of rapid diversification can be hindered by the lack of appropriately sampled, resolved, and strongly supported phylogenetic contexts. The use of curren...

Background Balanophoraceae plastomes are known for their highly condensed and re-arranged nature alongside the most extreme nucleotide compositional bias known to date, culminating in two independent reconfigurations of their genetic code. Currently, a large portion of the Balanophoraceae diversity remains unexplored, hindering, among others, evolu...

Aristolochia laotica, a new species from Northeastern Laos, is described and illustrated here. The horseshoe-shaped perianth tube, the 3-lobed limb, and the 3-lobed gynostemium support its placement into Aristolochia subgenus Siphisia. Of the species with cylindric or saccate-shaped limb, the new species resembles A. vuquangensis. However, it diffe...

The mitochondrial genome of Liriodendron tulipifera exhibits many ancestral angiosperm features and a remarkably slow evolutionary rate, while mitochondrial genomes of other magnoliids remain yet to be characterized. We assembled nine new mitochondrial genomes, representing all genera of perianth-bearing Piperales, as well as for a member of the si...

Anchored Hybrid Enrichment (AHE) is a tool for capturing orthologous regions of the nuclear genome shared in low or single copy across lineages. Despite the increasing number of studies using this method, its usefulness to estimate relationships at deeper taxonomic levels in plants has not been fully explored. Here we present a proof of concept abo...

Information provided by population genetic studies is often necessary to effectively protect endangered species. In general, such data is scarce for aquatic plants and this holds also for Luronium natans, an aquatic macrophyte endemic to northwestern and western Europe. It is threatened across its whole distribution range due to human influences, i...

Rafflesia species (Rafflesiaceae) are among the flagship plants of South-East Asian countries in which they occur. Three species of Rafflesia, i.e. Rafflesia patma, R. rochussenii, and R. zollingeriana, are known from Java, Indonesia. All three species are threatened with extinction due to human activities that cause habitat loss and fragmentation....

Full plastome sequences for land plants have become readily accessible thanks to the development of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) techniques and powerful bioinformatic tools. Despite this vast amount of genomic data, some lineages remain understudied. Full plastome sequences from the highly diverse (>1,500 spp.) subfamily Tillandsioideae (Bromel...

Plastome condensation during adaptation to a heterotrophic lifestyle is generally well understood and lineage-independent models have been derived. However, understanding the evolutionary trajectories of comparatively old heterotrophic lineages, that are on the cusp of a minimal plastomes, is essential to complement and expand current knowledge. We...

Zusammenfassung Dysaletria florisamica Stark n. sp. wird aus Spanien beschrieben und detailliert abgebildet. Alle Exemplare der neuen Art, ausschließlich Männchen, wurden in Gleitfallenblüten von Aristolochia paucinervis Pomel gefunden. Ein molekularer Barcode der neuen Art wurde ermittelt und in der GenBank-Datenbank hinterlegt. Ein taxonomischer...

The taxonomy of the Mediterranean Aristolochia pallida complex has been under debate since several decades with the following species currently recognized: A. pallida, A. lutea, A. nardiana, A. microstoma, A. merxmuelleri, A. croatica, and A. castellana. These taxa are distributed from Iberia to Turkey. To reconstruct phylogenetic and biogeographic...

One of the anthropogenic causes affecting species distribution is climate change, which has significant implications for species conservation. However, little is known about the effects of changes in parasitic plant distribution on community-level interactions. Parasitic flowering plants make a limited numerical contribution to biodiversity. Their...

Aristolochia luudamcui (Aristolochia subgen. Siphisia, Aristolochiaceae), a new species from Vietnam, previously misidentified as A. utriformis, is described and illustrated here. The new species is most similar to A. pseudoutriformis and A. utriformis concerning the morphology of the leaf lamina, the color of the perianth, and the shape of the lim...

Aristolochia, a genus in the magnoliid order Piperales, has been famous for centuries for its highly specialized flowers and wide medicinal applications. Here, we present a new, high-quality genome sequence of Aristolochia fimbriata, a species that, similar to Amborella trichopoda, lacks further whole-genome duplications since the origin of extant...

Background: Hydrangea section Cornidia consists of 26 currently accepted species and a yet undefined number of new species and erroneously synonymized taxa. This clade consists of (sub)tropical lianas occurring from northern Mexico to southern Chile and Argentina, and one species from Southeast Asia. Currently, no molecular phylogenetic hypothesis...

Deceptive flowers decoy pollinators by advertising a reward, which finally is not provided. Numerous deceptive plants are pollinated by Diptera, but the attractive cues and deceptive strategies are only identified in a few cases. A typical fly-deceptive plant genus is Aristolochia, which evolved sophisticated trap flowers to temporarily capture pol...

Phylogenetic relationships within the magnoliid order Piperales have been studied extensively, yet the relationships of the monotypic family Lactoridaceae and the holoparasitic Hydnoraceae to the remainder of the order remain a matter of debate. Since the first confident molecular phylogenetic placement of Hydnoraceae among Piperales, different stu...

The mega-diversity of herbivorous insects is attributed to their co-evolutionary associations with plants. Despite abundant studies on insect-plant interactions, we do not know whether host-plant shifts have impacted both genomic adaptation and species diversification over geological times. We show that the antagonistic insect-plant interaction bet...

Photoredox catalysis is a powerful and modern strategy for the synthesis of complex organic molecules. So far, this field has relied on the use on a limited range of metal-based chromophores or artificial organic dyes. Here, we show that the ubiquitous plant genus Hypericum can be used as efficient photoredox catalyst. The dried blossoms efficientl...

The exuberant proliferation of herbivorous insects is attributed to their associations with plants. Despite abundant studies on insect-plant interactions, we do not know whether host-plant shifts have impacted both genomic adaptation and species diversification over geological times. We show that the antagonistic insect-plant interaction between sw...

Controlled spatiotemporal cell division and expansion are responsible for floral bilateral symmetry. Genetic studies have pointed to class II TCP genes as major regulators of cell division and floral patterning in model core eudicots. Here we study their evolution in perianth‐bearing Piperales and their expression in Aristolochia, a rare occurrence...

Plastomes of parasitic and mycoheterotrophic plants show different degrees of reduction depending on the plants’ level of heterotrophy and host dependence in comparison to photoautotrophic sister species, and the amount of time since heterotrophic dependence was established. In all but the most recent heterotrophic lineages, this reduction involves...

Universal angiosperm enrichment probe sets designed to enrich hundreds of putatively orthologous nuclear single-copy loci are increasingly being applied to infer phylogenetic relationships of different lineages of angiosperms at a range of evolutionary depths. Studies applying such probe sets have focused on testing the universality and performance...

Background: The ornamental crop Hydrangea macrophylla develops highly attractive lacecap (wild type) or mophead inflorescences. The mophead trait, which is mostly favored by consumers, is recessively inherited by the INFLORESCENCE TYPE locus (INF). If lacecap cultivars are crossed with mophead cultivars, then either 50% or all progenies develop la...

Xylem vulnerability to cavitation and hydraulic efficiency are directly linked to fine‐scale bordered pit features in water‐conducting cells of vascular plants. However, it is unclear how pit characteristics influence water transport and carbon economy in tropical species. The primary aim of this study was to evaluate functional implications of cha...

1 2 The grapevine, Vitis vinifera L., is one of the major fruit crops in the world. Breeding new grapevine cultivars for wine production with specific characteristics is a time consuming and costly process. While there are selection markers for resistance, so far, there are none for 'wine quality' since this is characterized by a highly complex com...

Gaps between molecular ages and fossils undermine the validity of time-calibrated molecular phylogenies. An example of the time gap surrounds the age of angiosperms' origin. We calculate molecular ages of the earliest flowering plant lineages using 22 fossil calibrations (101 genera, 40 families). Our results reveal the origin of angiosperms at the...

Cultivation of the sea water diatom Stephanopyxis turris (S. turris) in a gold salt containing medium leads to the formation of gold nanoparticles. These biosynthesized nanoparticles were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and selected area elec...

Recalcitrant relationships are characterized by very short internodes that can be found among shallow and deep phylogenetic scales all over the tree of life. Adding large amounts of presumably informative sequences, while decreasing systematic error, has been suggested as a possible approach to increase phylogenetic resolution. The development of e...

Premise of research. Window-leaved Peperomia taxa (WPs) occur in the Peruvian Andes from near sea level to high altitudes and display curled leaves that are generally exposed to high irradiance and periodic drought, far different from the typically uncurled humid-forest, often-shaded Peperomia taxa. Even though representatives of the latter taxa, a...

An important goal of the angiosperm systematics community has been to develop a shared approach to molecular data collection, such that phylogenomic data sets from different focal clades can be combined for meta-studies across the entire group. Although significant progress has been made through efforts such as DNA barcoding, transcriptome sequenci...

The species-rich genus Peperomia (Black Pepper relatives) is the only genus among early diverging angiosperms where epiphytism evolved. The majority of fruits of Peperomia release sticky secretions or exhibit hook-shaped appendages indicative of epizoochorous dispersal, which is in contrast to other flowering plants, where epiphytes are generally c...

Pollination success of highly specialised flowers is susceptible to fluctuations of the pollinator fauna. Mediterranean Aristolochia rotunda has deceptive trap flowers exhibiting a highly specialised pollination system. The sole pollinators are kleptoparasitic flies in search of food. This study investigates these pollinators on a spatio‐temporal s...

Aristolochia bidoupensis Do sp. nov. is newly described. This new species, currently only known from southern Vietnam, is most similar to Aristolochia faviogonzalezii (northern Vietnam) and A. moupinensis (China), but can be distinguished from the latter two by the following characters: flowers terminal, axillary, solitary, peduncle 1.3-1.5 cm long...

Abstract— Four new Aristolochia species from the Mexican states of Colima, Jalisco, and Nayarit are described and illustrated. The four new species, Aristolochia nahua , A. pacifica , A. savannoidea, and A. tuitensis , belong to Aristolochia subsection Pentandrae, and are morphologically similar to A. buntingii and A. tresmariae. All of these speci...