Phylogenomics of Western Eurasian Tilia: merging GBS datasets to place the Hyrcanian forest limes

TL;DR

This study uses genetic data to clarify the relationships among Tilia species in western Eurasia, focusing on populations in Iran's Hyrcanian forests.

Contribution

The study demonstrates that merging genotyping-by-sequencing datasets from different sources can resolve phylogenetic relationships in Tilia.

Findings

Merged GBS datasets revealed three major groups within Eurasian Tilia species.

Iranian Tilia samples were identified as tetraploid and genetically grouped with T. dasystyla subsp. caucasica.

Hyrcanian populations show a colonization pattern from northwest to east and include individuals resembling T. sabetii.

Abstract

Morphological uniformity in Tilia (Malvaceae s.l., Tilioideae) and unclear species delimitations resulted in over 500 names associated with the about 30 species of this genus. This is also an issue for the Hyrcanian Forest diversity hotspot of northern Iran, where between one and seven Tilia species were described to occur. We used genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) to analyze the phylogeny of western Eurasian Tilia species, place the Hyrcanian Tilia populations, and infer their phylogeography. To arrive at a complete taxon sample, we merged our own data (104 samples) with a Tilia GBS dataset available in GenBank (11 samples) and processed and analyzed them together.

We confirmed GBS data to be additive, i.e. independent datasets can be merged. We found three major groups within the Eurasian Tilia species and our analyses were able to resolve the phylogenetic relationships of the species. Neither T. cordata nor T. platyphyllos, both diploids and previously reported for Iran, are present in the region. Instead, the Iranian Tilia samples were identified as tetraploid by flow cytometry. Phylogenetic analyses clearly separated all species and found the Iranian samples to belong to T. dasystyla subsp. caucasica. The Hyrcanian populations we analyzed are genetically rather uniform and include a group of individuals morphologically resembling T. sabetii. Their taxonomic status is currently unclear. Within the Hyrcanian populations we found a colonization pattern from the northwestern to the eastern Hyrcanian forests.

Merging published GBS datasets from different labs will allow the study of geographically widespread taxa like Tilia, where relevant species or populations might not all be accessible to individual researchers. Based on the samples we analyzed, the different taxa described for Iran belong genetically to T. dasystyla, with morphological variation that might be attributed to local environmental factors.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12870-025-07435-4.

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