2026-10-14
Phylogeny of Virola (Myristicaceae) and a reassessment of its taxonomy
Publication
Publication
Phytotaxa , Volume 780 - Issue 1 p. 61- 72
Evolutionary relationships within the genus Virola (Myristicaceae) were explored with a set of 36 species, 14 of which were represented by a type specimen and 20 by more than one specimen in the phylogeny. Among these 20 species, 12 were resolved as monophyletic, with strong support. The status of species that are treated both as accepted names and as synonyms in the taxonomic literature was evaluated under the light of the new evidence provided by the molecular data. Furthermore, the placing of the monotypic genus Bicuiba in synonymy under Virola, as the older V. bicuhyba, was supported in this study by molecular and by morphological evidence. Previous classifications of the genus based on morphological characters showed a lack of congruency with the present phylogeny. A preliminary analysis of the geographical distribution of the members of the clades suggested that Virola might have originated in lowland Amazonia and repeatedly colonized other biomes, a hypothesis to be tested in the future. Finally, based on the results of our phylogeny combined with the taxonomic literature, we presented a curated list of accepted species to be used by the scientific community.
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| Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Naturalis Biodiversity Center | |
| doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.780.1.4 | |
| Phytotaxa | |
| Released under the CC-BY NC 4.0 (“Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International”) License | |
| Organisation | Naturalis Biodiversity Center |
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Mota de Oliveira, S., ter Steege, H., Corné Hoff, M.C.M. Eurlings, M.& Sabrina van den Bos. (2026). Phylogeny of Virola (Myristicaceae) and a reassessment of its taxonomy. Phytotaxa, 780(1), 61–72.https://doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.780.1.4 |
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