Mitochondrial genes from eighteen angiosperms fill sampling gaps for phylogenomic inferences of the early diversification of flowering plants

The early diversification of angiosperms is a rapid yet complicated process and thus it renders the phylogenetic analyses of early-diverging angiosperms much difficulty. Plastid and nuclear phylogenomic studies have raised several controversial hypotheses regarding the angiosperm phylogeny, whereas mitochondrial genomes have been largely ignored. In this study, we newly sequenced mitochondrial genomes from 18 angiosperms to fill the sampling gaps in magnoliids, Austrobaileyales, Chloranthales, Ceratophyllales, and early-diverging lineages of eudicots and monocots. A data matrix of 38 mitochondrial genes from 107 taxa was assembled to address this question. Although conflicting phylogenies were recovered in this study from different datasets and analytical methods, congruence was achieved regarding the deep relationships of several major angiosperm lineages: Chloranthales always groups with Ceratophyllales, Austrobaileyales is sister to mesangiosperms, and a previously unplaced clade—Dil...