The tribe Ranunculeae, Ranunculaceae, comprising 19 genera widely distributed all over the world. Although a large number of Sanger sequencing-based molecular phylogenetic studies have been published, very few studies have been performed on using genomic data to infer phylogenetic relationships within Ranunculeae. In this study, the complete plastid genomes of nine species (eleven samples) from Ceratocephala, Halerpestes, and Ranunculus were de novo assembled using a next-generation sequencing method. Previously published plastomes of Oxygraphis and other related genera of the family were downloaded from GenBank for comparative analysis. The complete plastome of each Ranunculeae species has 112 genes in total, including 78 protein-coding genes, 30 transfer RNA genes, and four ribosomal RNA genes. The plastome structure of Ranunculeae samples is conserved in gene order and arrangement. There are no inverted repeat (IR) region expansions and only one IR contraction was found in the tested samples. This study also compared plastome sequences across all the samples in gene collinearity, codon usage, RNA editing sites, nucleotide variability, simple sequence repeats, and positive selection sites. Phylogeny of the available Ranunculeae species was inferred by the plastome data using maximum-likelihood and Bayesian inference methods, and data partitioning strategies were tested. The phylogenetic relationships were better resolved compared to previous studies based on Sanger sequencing methods, showing the potential value of the plastome data in inferring the phylogeny of the tribe.
Keywords: IR contraction; Ranunculeae; complete plastid genome; next-generation sequencing; phylogeny; positive selection.