Comparing with phylogenetic trees inferred from cpDNA, ITS sequences and RAPD analysis in the genus asparagus (asparagaceae)

This genus Asparagus (Asparagaceae) includes commercially important species of vegetable as well as some ornamentally or medicinally important species, and it needs molecular markers to conduct precious identification. Therefore, we compared results of phylogenetic analyses based on different molecular approaches for this genus. To reconstruct phylogenetic trees, we used three data sets, sequences of some chloroplast UNA (cpDNA) regions and the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) 1 region, and random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) for seven samples selected from all subgenera in this genus. Both trees of the ITS region and the RAPD analysis have higher resolutions than those of cpDNA sequences. However, the tree of RAPD analysis has low a value of consistency index (CI) due to parallelism of many characters. The tree of ITS 1 sequences provided appropriate resolution and a high CI value. Therefore, ITS sequencing is overall the most efficient approach for clarifying the phylogenetic relationship among the species of Asparagus.