Subfamilial Phylogenetic Relationships of the Bromeliaceae: Evidence from Chloroplast DNA Restriction Site Variation

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Abstract
Restriction-site analyses of the chloroplast genomes of members of the Bromeliaceae were conducted to explore subfamilial phylogenetic relationships. Eighteen restriction-site mutations and one large (1.8-kb) length mutation were found to be variable at the family and subfamily levels. Cladistic analyses of these data supported the following hypotheses: 1) Bromelioideae and Pitcairnioideae are sister taxa and the latter may be paraphyletic; 2) Tillandsioideae s. str. and Bromelioideae are each monophyletic; 3) Tillandsioideae s. str. is the sister taxon of the remainder of the family; and 4) Glomeropitcairnia is phylogenetically distinct from the remainder of Tillandsioideae. These analyses suggest that the primarily terrestrial Pitcairnioideae are not basal in the family even though the terrestrial habit apparently is ancestral in Bromeliaceae. Chloroplast DNA data also support the contention that some morphological characters have evolved independently several times in this large, ecologically complex family.