Reassessment of the taxonomic relationships between closely related taxa of Papilionoideae.

Abstract

The present work was carried out to study some features of the family Papilonoideae. These features include seed protein profiles and morphology. These were used to re-assess some taxonomic relationships between some closely related taxa of the Papilionoideae; identifying the similarities and dissimilarities between them based on the SDS-PAGE of seed protein characters; determination of the interrelationships and affinities between them based on current systems of classification by using numerical methods. Seed protein profiles produced by gel electrophoresis and the molecular mass in kilo-Dalton of their polypeptide subunits and the morphological features were recorded in 36 species belonging to 11 genera of the Papilionoideae (family: Fabaceae). Phenetic relationships of these species were established based on UPGMA-clustering applied to the produced 97 seed protein characters in combination with 173 morphological characters by using different modules of the NTSYS-pc 2.2 program package. The produced data were compared by measuring each of the tree distortion; from its relevant data matrix; and association to each other based on their cophenetic (ultrametric) correlation coefficients. The present data were useful in revealing new distinguishing characters, identifying the similarities/ differences and confirming the taxonomic interrelationships between the studied taxa based on current systems of classification.