Heterosis and outbreeding depression in crosses between natural populations of Arabidopsis thaliana.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the causes and architecture of genetic differentiation between natural populations is of central importance in evolutionary biology. Crosses between natural populations can result in heterosis if recessive or nearly recessive deleterious mutations have become fixed within populations because of genetic drift. Divergence between populations can also result in outbreeding depression because of genetic incompatibilities. The net fitness consequences of between-population crosses will be a balance between heterosis and outbreeding depression. We estimated the magnitude of heterosis and outbreeding depression in the highly selfing model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, by crossing replicate line pairs from two sets of natural populations (C↔R, B↔S) separated by similar geographic dista

SUBMITTER: Oakley CG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4815493 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature