Multiple haploids, triploids, and tetraploids found in modern-day "living fossil" Ginkgo biloba.

ABSTRACT: Ginkgo biloba, the last extant representative of a lineage of Mesozoic gymnosperms, is one of the few seed plants with an exceptionally long (~300 Myr) evolutionary history free of genome-wide duplications (polyploidy). Despite this genome conservatism, we have recently found a viable spontaneous tetraploid Ginkgo sapling during routine screening of several plants, demonstrating that natural polyploidy is possible in Ginkgo. Here we provide a much wider flow cytometry survey of ploidy in some European Ginkgo collections, and own seedlings (>2200 individuals and ~200 cultivars). We found a surprisingly high level of ploidy variation in modern-day Ginkgo and documented altogether 13 haploid, 3 triploid, and 10 tetraploid Ginkgo plants or cultivars, m

SUBMITTER: Smarda P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6165845 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature