Dwarf males presence

The objectives of this chapter are several first, to resolve phylogenetic relationships within the Ptychomniales using DNA sequence data second, to reconstruct ancestral character states within the Ptychomniales and third, to test whether the presence of dwarf males correlates to morphological characters and the epiphytic habitat. 

Three character states were found to be significantly more likely to evolve in the presence of dwarf males, namely, teeth on dorsal leaf lamina (8), mitrate calyptrae (14), and furrowed capsules (15). With statistical support, the correlation tests suggest that dwarf males are more Ukely to evolve in the presence of rugose leaves (7) and paraphyllia (10). 

As mentioned above. Discrete can analyse only binary characters and any multistate character has to be either excluded from the analyses or transformed into binary ones. For some of the characters used in the present analyses, multistate codings are possible. For instance, the presence of dwarf males (character 1 state 1) can be coded as simple and unbranched, as for Garovaglia, or larger and branched, as for Euptychium, Glyphothecium and Cladomnion. It is therefore possible that the uncertainties in ancestral character state reconstructions might be an artifact of the binary... 

The results of the correlation tests suggest that the presence of teeth on the dorsal leaf lamina, mitrate calyptrae and furrowed capsules, are more likely to evolve when dwarf males are present. It seems reasonable that dorsal teeth, by providing further establishment points and protection for incoming spores, may be beneficial for taxa with dwarf males, but it is difficult to envision the benefits of mitrate calyptrae and furrowed capsules. It is worth mentioning, however, that correlation does not necessarily imply causation. 

---