Untangling complex histories of genome mergings in high polyploids

• Polyploidy, the duplication of entire genomes, plays a major role in plant evolution. In allopolyploids, genome duplication is associated with hybridization between two or more divergent genomes. Successive hybridization and polyploidization events can build up species complexes of allopolyploids with complicated network-like histories, and the evolutionary history of many plant groups cannot be adequately represented by phylogenetic trees because of such reticulate events. The history of complex genome mergings within a high-polyploid species complex in the genus Cerastium (Caryophyllaceae) is here untangled by the use of a network algorithm and noncoding sequences of a low-copy number gene. The resulting network illustrates how hybridization and polyploidization have acted as key evolutionary processes in creating a plant group where high-level allopolyploids clearly outnumber extant parental genomes.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Biologi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Biological Sciences (hsv//eng)

Keyword

NUCLEAR GENE-SEQUENCES

CERASTIUM-ALPINUM

RECONSTRUCTING PATTERNS

SILENE CARYOPHYLLACEAE

PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSIS

RETICULATE EVOLUTION

DNA-POLYMERASES

ARCTICUM LANGE

PLANTS

UTILITY

Allopolyploidy

Biology

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)