Conflict between morphological and molecular data: a case study of Ficus krishnae (Moraceae)

Ficus krishnae, considered as highly sacred plant species in India, is well known for its peculiar nature of cup-shaped leaves. The species distinctly differs from its allied species F. benghalensis not only in the cup formation in leaves but also in the height of plants, aerial roots, stipules, petiole and its leafy appendages, ostiolar bracts of the receptacle and pollinator wasps, in addition to slight differences in the karyotype, DNA contents, stomatal and parenchymatous cells and nodal anatomy. In spite of having several morphological differences, F. krishnae is considered by some authors as a synonym of F. benghalensis, which does not seem to be convincing. Contrary to the morphological differences, the sequence analysis of nuclear and plastid regions of both the species conducted in the present study does not reveal any significant variations and thus infers no differentiation between the species at molecular level. This may be due to mutations at one or few coding loci or diffe...

克里什纳榕（Ficus krishnae）在印度被视为极具神圣性的植物物种，以其独特的杯状叶形态广为人知。该物种与近缘物种孟加拉榕（Ficus benghalensis）存在显著差异：不仅叶片具有杯状结构，在植株高度、气生根 (aerial roots)、托叶 (stipules)、叶柄 (petiole) 及叶状附属物 (leafy appendages)、隐头花序的孔口苞片 (ostiolar bracts of the receptacle) 与传粉蜂 (pollinator wasps) 等特征上均有区别；此外二者在核型 (karyotype)、DNA含量 (DNA contents)、气孔 (stomatal) 与薄壁组织细胞 (parenchymatous cells) 以及节部解剖结构 (nodal anatomy) 等方面也存在细微差异。尽管存在诸多形态学差异，部分学者仍将克里什纳榕视为孟加拉榕的同物异名 (synonym)，这一观点似乎缺乏说服力。与形态学差异相悖的是，本研究对两个物种的核区 (nuclear regions) 与质体区 (plastid regions) 开展的序列分析 (sequence analysis) 未发现显著变异，因此无法在分子层面推断二者存在分化。这一现象可能源于单个或少数编码位点的突变或……