Contrasting Rates of Molecular Evolution and Patterns of Selection among Gymnosperms and Flowering Plants.

ABSTRACT: The majority of variation in rates of molecular evolution among seed plants remains both unexplored and unexplained. Although some attention has been given to flowering plants, reports of molecular evolutionary rates for their sister plant clade (gymnosperms) are scarce, and to our knowledge differences in molecular evolution among seed plant clades have never been tested in a phylogenetic framework. Angiosperms and gymnosperms differ in a number of features, of which contrasting reproductive biology, life spans, and population sizes are the most prominent. The highly conserved morphology of gymnosperms evidenced by similarity of extant species to fossil records and the high levels of macrosynteny at the genomic level have led scientists to believe that gymnosperms are slow-evolving plants

SUBMITTER: De La Torre AR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5435085 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature