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Diversity of arborescent lineages of Crotoneae (Euphorbiaceae) in the Brazilian Atlantic Rain Forest

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Abstract

We conducted fieldwork and herbarium research to investigate the morphological diversity, taxonomy, and geographic distribution of arborescent lineages of tribe Crotoneae (Euphorbiaceae) in the Brazilian Atlantic Rain Forest domain, a neotropical region considered one of the world’s hot spots of biodiversity. We found that arborescent lineages of Crotoneae are represented in the Atlantic Rain Forest by two genera (Croton and Brasiliocroton) and 23 species. Of this total, 70% of the species are endemic to the Atlantic Rain Forest. The genus Brasiliocroton, which is endemic to Brazil, includes two species, and Croton is represented by 21 species. We provide identification keys, update morphological description of key characters, include pertinent taxonomic comments, and illustrate most of the studied species with live photographs to facilitate taxonomic identification. The conservation status of each species is also evaluated. We establish five new synonyms, one superfluous name, and nine lectotypifications.

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Acknowledgements

This work is part of the Master thesis of RF Santos. We thank Amanda da Paixão Noranha Pereira, Daniela Carneiro-Torres and Otavio Luis Marques da Silva for providing photos of plants in the field. We are also grateful to all the herbaria cited for giving us access to their collections. Two anonymous reviewers made useful suggestions and corrections to improve an earlier version of this paper. Financial support was provided to MBR Caruzo (process 441049/2014-1) by “Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico” (CNPq).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Campus Diadema, Departamento de Ecologia e Biologia Evolutiva, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Diadema, SP, CEP 09972-270, Brazil

    Rafaela F. dos Santos & Maria B. Rossi Caruzo

  2. Real Jardín Botánico, RJB-CSIC, Plaza de Murillo 2, 28014, Madrid, Spain

    Ricarda Riina

  3. Instituto de Botânica, Secretaria do Meio Ambiente, Cx. Postal 3005, São Paulo, SP, CEP 01061-970, Brazil

    Maria B. Rossi Caruzo

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  1. Rafaela F. dos Santos
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  2. Ricarda Riina
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Correspondence to Ricarda Riina.

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Handling editor: Mike Thiv.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

606_2017_1441_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

The “Online Resource 1″ in the ESM file (Santos_ESM_1) includes a list of the studied taxa with their taxonomic authorities, and all the herbarium specimens examined (main collector, collection number and specimen determination). (PDF 144 kb)

Electronic supplementary material

Electronic supplementary material

Online Resource 1. List of the studied taxa with their taxonomic authorities, and all the herbarium specimens examined (main collector, collection number and specimen determination).

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dos Santos, R.F., Riina, R. & Caruzo, M.B.R. Diversity of arborescent lineages of Crotoneae (Euphorbiaceae) in the Brazilian Atlantic Rain Forest. Plant Syst Evol 303, 1467–1497 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-017-1441-8

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