Abstract/Summary

There are 24 species of Cyclamen, which found predominantly in the Mediterranean region and its surrounding areas in Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Over the years, scientists have studied the genus morphologically, cytologically, and more recent, systematically to unravel the mystery surrounding its evolutionary past. Using Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) techniques, we assembled complete chloroplast, nuclear ribosomal DNA, and 20 mitochondrial coding genes using multiple assemblers. Comparative analysis revealed that the chloroplast genomes in Cyclamen were largely similar to those of other angiosperms, with C. somalense being a unique case, displaying the loss of four ndh genes. Notably, ycf15 emerged as a pseudogene across the genus, similar to certain Primulaceae family members, suggesting its potential as a molecular marker for future investigations. Phylogenetic trees constructed based on the assembled genetic data displayed strong congruence, except for certain species that showed variations in their placement within the trees. The phylogenetic trees in this thesis showed the Cyclamen is monophyletic in the family Primulaceae. The mitochondrial-based tree was well-supported but remained unresolved, particularly in the Cilicium group, where a polytomy was observed. However, based on the trees, the results suggest that C. alpinum should belong to the Cilicium group instead of Coum. Additionally, C. africanum should be treated as a subspecies of hederifolium rather than a separate species. Furthermore, network approach was used to investigate the relationship in the Hederifolium group collected from Greece with different ploidy levels. Based on complete chloroplast sequences there are 17 distinct haplotypes and ten haplotypes based on nuclear ribosomal DNA. The results demonstrate a poor correlation between ploidy level and locations and current C. hederifolium subspecies classifications, due to limited genetic variation. The agreement between this thesis and the previous findings provides further support for the complex cytological characteristics exhibited by Cyclamen species within this group.