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The evolutionary trend of the morphological characters of the genus Stachys in Iran, on the basis of nrITS se-quence data, was investigated. A total of 28 nrITS sequences, representing 26 species of Stachys as well as Betonica of-ficinalis and Melittis mellisophyllum, were obtained from GenBank. Patterns of character evolution were assessed for 10 vegetative and reproductive characters with emphasis on taxonomic treatments of Stachys performed earlier to infer its history and interpret processes of change. The most important characters included habitat, growth form, leaf morp-hology, inflorescence, calyx and corolla as well as trichome morphology. Phylogenetic tree, based on the nrITS dataset, were constructed by Bayesian analysis. Parsimony mapping was performed in Mesquite v. 1.12. The present analysis revealed that the state of symmetrical calyx, the presence of basal leaves as well as the presence of glandular trichomes were not in agreement with the results of molecular data, which indicated the artificial nature of these characters in pr-evious classification. The presence of simple trichomes as well as the growth forms were consistent with phylogeny ba-sed on nrITS sequences. Evolutionary trend of morphological characters demonstrated that the sect. Eriostomum and sect. Fragilicaulis were the most primitive and the most advanced sections in Iran, respectively.

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Abstract. Eurasian Nuthatch (Sitta europaea), with 18 subspecies, has a wide distribution in deciduous forests of Eurasia. The subspecies S.e.persica is a resident bird in the Zagros Mountains, from north-west to south-west of Iran. The aim of this study was to evaluate the taxonomic and phylogenetic relationships of this subspecies to European, Asian, as well as Caucasian clades. For this purpose, 10 individuals of two populations from Zagros forests in Kermansha and Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad provinces were captured and blood samples were collected. Furthermore, we used ND2 sequence data (1041 bp) for 136 sequnces from GenBank. were used from Then genetic variations and Genealogical analysis was calculated using complete ND2 gene sequence (1041bp) and TRN+G model, Bayesian trees and maximum likelihood, respectively. Also, median joining algorithm showed the relationships among haplotypes. We found four new haplotypes for the Zagros populations. Our phylogenetic analysis revealed that the genetic distance between Zagros population and Caucasian clade was significantly small, demonstrating Zagros populations are part of the Caucasian clade. F_ST statistical values, resulted from Analysis of Molecular Variance (AMOVA), represented significant variations in genetic structure among Eurasian Nuthatch populations. Moreover, F_CT revealed significant variation among European, Asian, and Caucasian clades. Overall our result suggests that Eurasian Nuthatch populations in Eurasia comprise three phylogenetic species, and likely biological species. Hoewever, the previous nomenclatured subspecies, S.e.caucasian and S.e.persica, can be considered as a common phylogenetic species.

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In this study, phylogenetic relationships and evolutionary trends of morphological characters of Astragalus sects. Acanthophace and Aegacantha were studied using nrDNA ITS and rpl32-trnL^UAG datasets while Astragalus stocksii was selected as the outgroup. The phylogenetic results indicated the non-monophyly of A. sect. Acanthophace in its current circumscription due to the distant exclusion of A. ovigerus from the core group, and incongruence between nuclear and plastid datasets on the basis of different position of latter species in the resulted phylogenetic trees. Astragalus sect. Aegacantha was also found to not being monophyletic due to the distant position of A. montis-parrowii from the other representatives of the section while accompanying with other spiny Astragalus species. The Optimization of 32 morphological characters on the Bayesian combined tree indicated that some characters were most useful for delimitation of taxa in sections Acanthophace and Aegacantha. The results obtained from the evolution of characters showed that standard blade constriction, legume shape and possessing unilocular pods were of diagnostic importance for the separation of A. ovigerus from other species. The traced characters were in accordance with the phylogenetic position of A. montis-parrowii, which was separated from other members of sect. Aegacantha, as the number of flowers in inflorescences, the presence of peduncle, hairy petal, pandurate standard and constriction of standard that is differentiatiated to claw, the presence of claw in standard and the length difference between keel and wing were different from those in other members of the sect. Aegacantha.