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(American Journal of Botany. 2009;96:1744-1750.)
doi: 10.3732/ajb.0800425
© 2009 Botanical Society of America, Inc.
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Brief Communication

Cuscuta jepsonii (Convolvulaceae): An invasive weed or an extinct endemic?1

Mihai Costea2,4 and Sasa Stefanovic3

2 Department of Biology, Wilfrid Laurier University, 75 University Avenue W, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3C5, Canada 3 Department of Biology, University of Toronto, 3359 Mississauga Road, Mississauga, Ontario, L5L 1C6, Canada

ABSTRACT

Despite their ecological significance, parasitic plants face more conservation challenges than do autotrophic plants. This is especially true for the groups that include weedy or invasive species such as Cuscuta. While approximately half of the Cuscuta (dodders) species may require conservation measures, the genus as a whole is sometimes posted on governmental lists of noxious or quarantine weeds. Our study challenges this stereotype and uses the case of C. jepsonii (Jepson’s dodder) to illustrate the precarious biodiversity and conservation status faced by many dodder species. Until now, Jepson’s dodder has been known only from its type collection. Consequently, its phylogenetic affinities, morphological variation, and ecology have remained unknown, and the species is currently ambiguously considered either synonymous to the invasive North American weed C. indecora or to an extinct endemic from California. Using molecular data from newly found collections, we infer that C. jepsonii belongs to C. californica species complex, instead of C. indecora clade. Also, we discuss the conservation of this species within the broader biological and ecological context of Cuscuta in general.

Key Words: biodiversity • conservation • Convolvulaceae • Cuscuta jepsonii • dodders • ecology • extinct • invasive • parasitic plants • host specificity • phylogeny

Received for publication 17 December 2008. Accepted for publication 20 April 2009.

FOOTNOTES

1 The authors thank M. Wright and M. Welsh for fieldwork on Mount Shasta, D. Burge for generously sharing the unpublished information on Ceanothus, and T. Dickinson, D. Nickrent, S. Ramsay, M. Simmons, and an anonymous reviewer for critical comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. This research was supported by NSERC of Canada Discovery grants to M.C. (327013-06) and S.S. (326439-06).

4 Author for correspondence (e-mail: mcostea{at}wlu.ca)


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