Phylogeny of
Sarcoscypha species
Harrington
& Potter (1997) and Harrington (1998) carried out DNA sequence analysis
on 14 species of Sarcoscypha.
This study confirms the distinction of different species in the genus based on
morphological characteristics. The genetic data even coincide with an evanescent
morphological feature, the ascospore envelope, which is present in N-American
but absent in European S. coccinea, supporting a possible
differentiation into two taxa. It must be mentioned that S. javensis clustered
among the three species around S. occidentalis in the tree of Harrington
& Potter (1997) while it came out at the very base in the tree of
Harrington (1998). Harrington & Potter (1997: 265) concluded from their
tree that the genus might have an Asian origin. It must be considered, however,
that none of the species known from Madagaskar were available for molecular
investigation.
Phylogenetic tree of sequenced
species of Sarcoscypha based on ITS sequence data (Harrington 1998)
|
┌──────
vassiljevae │ ┌──────knixoniana ┌┤┌┤┌────── humberiana │└┤└┼─────
austriaca │ │
│┌──── macaronesica │ │
└┤┌──── coccinea │ │ └┴──── aff. coccinea │ │
┌──────korfiana │
│┌┤┌──── occidentalis │
└┤└┴──── mesocyatha │ │ ┌─── dudleyi │
│┌─┴─── jurana │
└┴───── hosoyae └──── javensis |
E Russia Japan Taiwan colline to boreal Europe & N-America Macaronesia, atlantic (& mediterranean) Europe oceanic N-America NE China continental & atlantic N-America Hawaii N-atlantic N-America montaneous Europe Japan cosmopolitan in tropics & subtropics |