In the Chilean Atacama Desert Tillandsia landbeckii Phil. is forming a unique vegetation type known as Tillandsia lomas. This vegetation consists in its typical configuration of one single vascular plant species only. The species forms regular linear structures in a sloped landscape and is largely depending on sand movement and fog occurrence as dominant source of water supply. Without developing a typical root system there are also few other terrestrial Tillandsia species growing on bare sand in Chile and Peru such as T. marconae Till & Vitel, T. virescens Ruiz & Pavon, T. purpurea Ruiz & Pavon or T. latifolia Mayen. Although phylogenetic evidence is limited, convergent evolution of this unique growth behavior is evident. The Atacama Desert is one of the oldest hyperarid areas globally alongside the Namib. The predominantly arid and hyper-arid climate exists since the Early Miocene, which raises the question about timing of T. landbeckii evolutionary history. Our study highlights the onset of diversification in T. landbeckii and demonstrates also subsequent secondary genetic contact with T. purpurea during Late Pleistocene using whole plastome DNA sequence data.

List of Content for DRYAD data base: SNP-matrix for RaxML-ng ML tree in Phylip format: Concat_seqData_TillMixed_T.usAndAnanas.phy Partitions of plastome data for RaxML-ng ML tree: partitions_for_raxml.txt RaxML-ng ML tree in Newick format: Concat_seqData_TillMixed_T.usAndAnanas.phy.raxml.support BEAST2 chronogram in Nexus format: treeannotator_100M_newRoot3.nex Suppl. Figure: "Tillandsia" barcode phylogeny based on plastid trnK-matK-trnK (Large-Single-Copy-region) (alignment length of 1887 bp.), rpoB-trnC-petN (LSC-Region) (alignment length of 3225 bp.) and ycf1. Treefile corresponding to the Suppl. Fig. (barcode phylogeny): Barcode_phylogeny_Tillandsiodes_raxml_support.tre Gene list of genes identified and annotated in the various bromeliad species: Gene_list.xlsx

The SNP matrix contains SNPs from the various coding regions of bromeloid plastomes. The respective gene list is provided as excel table. The respective partioning sheme is also provided. Treefiles from maximum-likelihood analysis and BEAST analysis complement results from respective analyses. A large-scale barcode phylogeny is provided as annotated and edited image file (PDF). The respective treefile is is also provided as bracket notation.