Incongruent phylogenies and their implications for the study of diversification, taxonomy, and genome size evolution of <i>Rhododendron</i>

Abstract

We endorse the recognition of five major clades at the subgeneric level, but a number of species cannot be confidently assigned to these clades due to incongruency. With regard to genome size evolution, results support previous reports that genome sizes of tropical plants are lower than those of colder and temperate regions and that genome downsizing promotes diversification.