Diverged subpopulations in tropical Urochloa (Brachiaria) forage species indicate a role for facultative apomixis and varying ploidy in their population structure and evolution.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Urochloa (syn. Brachiaria) is a genus of tropical grasses sown as forage feedstock, particularly in marginal soils. Here we aimed to clarify the genetic diversity and population structure in Urochloa species to understand better how population evolution relates to ploidy level and occurrence of apomictic reproduction.

Methods

We explored the genetic diversity of 111 accessions from the five Urochloa species used to develop commercial cultivars. These accessions were conserved from wild materials collected at their centre of origin in Africa, and they tentatively represent the complete Urochloa gene pool used in breeding programmes. We used RNA-sequencing to generate 1.1 million single nucleotide polymorphism loci. We employed genetic admixture, principal component

SUBMITTER: Higgins J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9670755 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature