Pathways to polyploidy: indications of a female triploid bridge in the alpine species Ranunculus kuepferi (Ranunculaceae).

ABSTRACT: Polyploidy is one of the most important evolutionary processes in plants. In natural populations, polyploids usually emerge from unreduced gametes which either fuse with reduced ones, resulting in triploid offspring (triploid bridge), or with other unreduced gametes, resulting in tetraploid embryos. The frequencies of these two pathways, and male versus female gamete contributions, however, are largely unexplored. Ranunculus kuepferi occurs with diploid, triploid and autotetraploid cytotypes in the Alps, whereby diploids are mostly sexual, while tetraploids are facultative apomicts. To test for the occurrence of polyploidization events by triploid bridge, we investigated 551 plants of natural populations via flow cytometric seed screening. We assessed ploidy shifts in the embryo to

SUBMITTER: Schinkel CCF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5640749 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature