• Korean Journal of Plant Taxonomy
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.127-143
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• 2022

This study was conducted to clarify the phylogenetic position and relationships of Korean Poaceae taxa. A total of 438 taxa including 155 accessions of Korean Poaceae (representing 92% and 72% of Korean Poaceous genera and species, respectively) were employed for phylogeny reconstruction. Sequence data of eight chloroplast DNA markers were used for molecular phylogenetic analyses. The resulted phylogeny was mostly concordant with previous phylogenetic hypotheses, especially in terms of subfamilial and tribal relationships. Several taxa-specific indels were detected in the molecular phylogeny, including a 45 bp deletion in rps3 (PACMAD [Panicoideae, Arundinoideae, Chloridoideae, Micrairoideae, Aristidoideae, Danthonioideae] clade), a 15 bp deletion in ndhF (Oryzeae + Phyllorachideae), a 6 bp deletion in trnLF (Poeae s.l.), and two (17 bp and 378 bp) deletions in atpF-H (Pooideae). The Korean Poaceae members were classified into 23 tribes, representing eight subfamilies. The subfamilial and tribal classifications of the Korean taxa were generally congruent with a recently published system, whereas some subtribes and genera were found to be non-monophyletic. The taxa included in the PACMAD clade (especially Andropogoneae) showed very weak and uncertain phylogenetic relationships, presumably to be due to evolutionary radiation and polyploidization. The reconstructed phylogeny can be utilized to update the taxonomic positions of the newly examined grass accessions.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.1-13
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• 2016

Climate changes are shifting the perception of C4 photosynthetic crops due to their superior adaptability to harsh conditions. The tribe Andropogoneae includes some economically important grasses, such as Zea mays, Sorghum bicolor, Miscanthus spp., and Saccharum spp., representing C4 photosynthetic grasses. Although the Andropogoneae grasses diverged fairly recently, their genomic structures are remarkably different from each other. As previously reported, the family Poaceae shares the pan-cereal duplication event occurring ca. 65 MYA. Since this event, Sorghum bicolor has never experienced any additional duplication event. However, some lineage-specific duplication events were reported in Z. mays and Saccharum spp., and, more recently, it was revealed that a shared allotetraploidization event occurred before the divergence between Miscanthus and Saccharum (but after the divergence from S. bicolor), which provided important clues to those two species having large genome sizes with complicated ploidy numbers. The complex genomic structures of sugarcane and Miscanthus (defined as the Saccharum complex along with some other taxa) have had a limiting effect on the use of their molecular information in breeding programs. For the last decade, genomics-associated technologies have become an important tool for molecular crop breeding (genomics-assisted breeding, GAB), but it has not been directly applied to sugarcane and Miscanthus due to their complicated genome structures. As genomics research advances, molecular breeding of those crops can take advantage of technical improvements at a reasonable cost through comparative genomic approaches. Active genomic research of non-model species using closely related model species will facilitate the improvement of those crops in the future.