African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 4 (6), pp. 563-569, June 2005          
ISSN 1684–5315 © 2005 Academic Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Phylogeny of the genus Morus (Urticales: Moraceae) inferred from ITS and trnL-F sequences

Zhao Weiguo^1,2; Pan Yile¹*; Zhang Zhifang;Jia Shihai²; Miao Xuexia²;Huang Yongping²

¹Sericultural Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Zhenjiang City, Jiangsu Province 212018, China.

²Shanghai Institute of Plant Physiology and Ecology, Shanghai Institute for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 300 Fenglin Road, Shanghai 200032, China.

*Corresponding Author. E-mail: wgzsri@sina.com.

Accepted 20 April, 2005

Both nuclear ribosomal ITS and chloroplast trnL-F sequences were acquired from 13 mulberry genotypes belonging to nine species and three varieties, and one paper mulberry. The later belongs to genus B. papyrifera, designed as outgroup, and were analyzed. Within the genus Morus, the sequence diversity of ITS was much higher than that of trnL-F. The results of phylogenetic analyses based on these data (separately or combined) show that the genus Morus is monophyletic group. Strict consensus tree obtained through the Neighbor-joining method can be divided into five major clades in the genus Morus, according to combined sequence data. M. bombycis, M. alba var. venose formed clades A and B, respectively. Clade C comprises of 5 species; M. rotundiloba, M. atropurpurea, M. mongolica, M. australi, and M. mongolica var. diabolica. Clade D comprises of 3 species; M. wittiorum, M. laevigata, and M. alba. Clade E comprises of 2 species; M. multicaulis, and M.alba var. macrophylla. The results from cluster analysis were basically in agreement with the existing morphologic classification.

Key words: Morus, phylogeny, ITS, trnL-F.