GUALA, GERALD F. Department of Botany, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611. - A Revision of Homozeugos (Poaceae: Andropogoneae) and the relationship of spatial environmental variables to distribution and speciation.
Homozeugos is an andropogonoid savanna grass from central
Africa. The monophyly of the genus is confirmed by both morphological
and molecular (ITSI&II) data sets. Homozeugos fragile and H.
katakton form a clade that is sister to the rest of the genus.
Within the other clade, H. eylesii is basal to the rest with
H. conciliatus, sister to H. huillense and H.
gossweilerii in the terminal clade. A Geographic Information
System (GIS) was compiled using 48 layers of spatial environmental
data. Soil chemical, physical and color analyses were done on samples
from every collection made for this study. These data were integrated
with the distributions of the species to predict the species' possible
distributions using coincidence of layers in the GIS. The spatial
data were then integrated with the cladogram, using a new method
described here, to determine the degree of correlation of different
environmental parameters with cladogenesis. Mean monthly
precipitation (for several months) and hours of sunshine (for several
months) as well as temperature and dry season vegetation are
correlated with cladogenesis in Homozeugos to varying degrees.
Key words: Geographic Information Systems, Homozeugos, Poaceae, Graminae, Agenium, speciation