Testing a hypothesis of unidirectional hybridization in plants: observations on Sonneratia, Bruguiera and Ligularia.

ABSTRACT:

Background

When natural hybridization occurs at sites where the hybridizing species differ in abundance, the pollen load delivered to the rare species should be predominantly from the common species. Previous authors have therefore proposed a hypothesis on the direction of hybridization: interspecific hybrids are more likely to have the female parent from the rare species and the male parent from the common species. We wish to test this hypothesis using data of plant hybridizations both from our own experimentation and from the literature.

Results

By examining the maternally inherited chloroplast DNA of 6 cases of F1 hybridization from four genera of plants, we infer unidirectional hybridization in most cases. In all 5 cases where the relative abundance of the parental speci

SUBMITTER: Zhou R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2409324 | biostudies-literature | 2008 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature