Setting the evolutionary timeline: Tillandsia landbeckii in the Chilean Atacama Desert

In the Chilean Atacama Desert Tillandsia landbeckii Phil. is forming a unique vegetation type known as Tillandsia lomas. This vegetation consists in its typical configuration of one single vascular plant species only. The species forms regular linear structures in a sloped landscape and is largely depending on sand movement and fog occurrence as dominant source of water supply. Without developing a typical root system there are also few other terrestrial Tillandsia species growing on bare sand in Chile and Peru such as T. marconae Till & Vitel, T. virescens Ruiz & Pavon, T. purpurea Ruiz & Pavon or T. latifolia Mayen. Although phylogenetic evidence is limited, convergent evolution of this unique growth behavior is evident. The Atacama Desert is one of the oldest hyperarid areas globally alongside the Namib. The predominantly arid and hyper-arid climate exists since the Early Miocene, which raises the question about timing of T. landbeckii evolutionary history. Our study highlights the onset of diversification in T. landbeckii and demonstrates also subsequent secondary genetic contact with T. purpurea during Late Pleistocene using whole plastome DNA sequence data.

Methods
List of Content for DRYAD data base:

SNP-matrix for RaxML-ng ML tree in Phylip format: Concat_seqData_TillMixed_T.usAndAnanas.phy

Partitions of plastome data for RaxML-ng ML tree: partitions_for_raxml.txt

RaxML-ng ML tree in Newick format: Concat_seqData_TillMixed_T.usAndAnanas.phy.raxml.support

BEAST2 chronogram in Nexus format: treeannotator_100M_newRoot3.nex

Suppl. Figure: "Tillandsia" barcode phylogeny based on plastid trnK-matK-trnK (Large-Single-Copy-region) (alignment length of 1887 bp.), rpoB-trnC-petN (LSC-Region) (alignment length of 3225 bp.) and ycf1.
Treefile corresponding to the Suppl. Fig. (barcode phylogeny):   Barcode_phylogeny_Tillandsiodes_raxml_support.tre
Gene list of genes identified and annotated in the various bromeliad species: Gene_list.xlsx