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ŠUMARSKI LIST 5-6/2018 str. 33     <-- 33 -->        PDF

RESOLVING THE TAXONOMIC STATUS OF THE MYSTERIOUS „GREEN OAK“ (Quercus× viridis Trinajstić) FROM CROATIA BASED ON PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSIS
TAKSONOMSKI STATUS MISTERIOZNOGA “ZELENOGA HRASTA” (Quercus× viridis Trinajstić) IZ HRVATSKE, TEMELJEN NA FILOGENETSKOJ ANALIZI
Martina TEMUNOVIĆ, Jozo FRANJIĆ, Federico VESSELLA, Marco C. SIMEONE
Summary
The “green oak” is a well-known specific individual oak tree of unknown origin growing near Zadar in Croatia. Depending on the authors, it was described either as a hybrid taxon between Quercus cerris L. and Q. ilex L. (named Q. × viridis Trinajstić) or alternatively as a presumed hybrid between Q. cerris and Q. suber L. To finally resolve the origin of this taxon, we performed molecular analyses and investigated the phylogenetic relationships between the “green oak” and other closely related oak taxa from the surrounding area, including all putative parental species. A total of 16 individuals representing nine Quercus L. taxa were investigated based on both plastid (trnK-matK and trnH-psbA) and nuclear (5.8S + ITS2) DNA sequence variation. Placement of the green oak in the phylogenetic relationships between the studied oak taxa does not support Q. ilex as one of its parental species but rather indicates that this taxon is in fact Q. crenata Lam., reaffirming previous alternative hypothesis that the green oak is a hybrid between Q. cerris and Q. suber. We therefore confirm the presence of Q. crenata in the Croatian flora and based on historical literature survey, we explore and discuss the implication of its occurrence and possible hybridogenic origin in the Croatian territory.
Key words: Green oak, Quercus × viridis, Quercus crenata, hybrids, phylogeny, taxonomy
INTRODUCTION
UVOD
Oak taxonomy has been an unfailing research topic for decades and continues to be so. This comes as no surprise since oaks (genus Quercus L., Fagaceae) are among the most important forest trees in the Northern hemisphere from ecological, economic, biodiversity and social points of view. In addition, oaks offer an emblematic example of problematic taxonomy and species status due to extensive hybridization among several taxa (Muir, 2000). Although challenging the classical biological species concept (Burger,