Aim  Plants in islands have often evolved through adaptive radiation, providing the classical model of evolution of closely related species each with strikingly different morphological and ecological features and with low levels of genetic divergence. We emphasize the importance of an alternative (anagenetic) model of evolution, whereby a single island endemic evolves from a progenitor and slowly builds up genetic variation through time. Location  Continental and oceanic islands. Methods  We surveyed 2640 endemic angiosperm species in 13 island systems of the world, both oceanic and continental, for anagenetic and cladogenetic patterns of speciation. Genetic data were evaluated from a progenitor and derivative species pair in Ullung Island, Korea, and Japan. Results  We show that the anagenetic model of evolution is much more important in oceanic islands than previously believed, accounting for levels of endemic specific diversity from 7% in the Hawaiian Islands to 88% in Ullung Island, Korea, with a mean for all islands of 25%. Examination of an anagenetically derived endemic species in Ullung Island reveals genetic (amplified fragment length polymorphism) variation equal or nearly equal to that of its continental progenitor. Main conclusions  We hypothesize that, during anagenetic speciation, initial founder populations proliferate, and then accumulate genetic variation slowly through time by mutation and recombination in a relatively uniform environment, with drift and/or selection yielding genetic and morphological divergence sufficient for the recognition of new species. Low‐elevation islands with low habitat heterogeneity are highly correlated with high levels of anagenetic evolution, allowing prediction of levels of the two models of evolution from these data alone. Both anagenetic and adaptive radiation models of speciation are needed to explain the observed levels of specific and genetic diversity in oceanic islands.

No abstract

The 'didymocarpoid Gesneriaceae' (traditional subfam. Cyrtandroideae excluding Epithemateae) are the largest group of Old World Gesneriaceae, comprising 85 genera and 1800 species. We attempt to resolve their hitherto poorly understood generic relationships using three molecular markers on 145 species, of which 128 belong to didymocarpoid Gesneriaceae. Our analyses demonstrate that consistent topological relationships can be retrieved from data sets with missing data using subsamples and different combinations of gene sequences. We show that all available classifications in Old World Gesneriaceae are artificial and do not reflect natural relationships. At the base of the didymocarpoids are grades of clades comprising isolated genera and small groups from Asia and Europe. These are followed by a clade comprising the African and Madagascan genera. The remaining clades represent the advanced Asiatic and Malesian genera. They include a major group with mostly twisted capsules. The much larger group of remaining genera comprises exclusively genera with straight capsules and the huge genus Cyrtandra with indehiscent fruits. Several genera such as Briggsia, Henckelia, and Chirita are not monophyletic; Chirita is even distributed throughout five clades. This degree of incongruence between molecular phylogenies, traditional classifications, and generic delimitations indicates the problems with classifications based on, sometimes a single, morphological characters.

Flow cytometric DNA analysis was used to study changes in nuclear DNA content induced by the addition of complete or telosomic rye chromosomes into the genome of common wheat (Triticum aestivum L.). The DNA content of each addition line was determined by comparison with an internal reference value and was expressed as a difference with respect to the original wheat parental line. A 1.84% difference in the DNA content could be detected. Nuclei were flow sorted and the presence of rye D N A analysis by flow cytometry is now widely used in various aspects of biological research and clinical diagnosis. Whereas in clinical diagnosis detection of aneuploidy is an important prognostic tool in a variety of malignant diseases (14,27), in plants flow cytometry finds large application to determine different ploidy levels. Applications include the screening of seed lots for triploid plants during hybrid seed production in sugar beets (6) or the screening of haploid plants obtained by anther and pollen culture (reviewed in 8,17).However, aneuploidy can also play an important role in various aspects of plant research. For example, in common wheat the loss of one chromosome is sometimes tolerated, resulting in the formation of viable monosomic or nullisomic plants due to compensation by homoeologous chromosomes ( 2 1 ). Moreover, tissue culture methods intended to micropropagate plants are sometimes associated with somaclonal variation, including the formation of aneuploid plants ( 1,8,16). This appears to be particularly frequent when immature wheat pollen is cultivated in vitro to obtain haploid plants (IS). Conventional cytogenetic techniques in aneuploidy detection are laborious and time consuming. Potentially this drawback can be circumvented by applying flow cytometric techniques to screen plantlets for deviant chromosome numbers provided that flow cytometry is sensitive enough to detect DNA content differences caused by the presence or absence of one single chromosome.In humans, flow cytometry has been successfully used to detect the loss or gain of nuclear DNA as a result of chromatin in the nuclei with the higher DNA content was demonstrated by Southern hybridization. Flow cytometry was proven to be sensitive enough to detect the small DNA content deviations that are expected to occur in aneuploid plants of wheat. Keyterms: Flow cytometry, flow sorting, aneuploidy detection, 4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI), wheat monosomy, trisomy, and other cases of aneuploidy (9). Furthermore, using internal standards during the mea surements to eliminate a number of sources of variation, flow cytometry has been proven to be sensitive enough to detect chromosome-related differences in D N A content of 1.6% between human male and female lymphocytes ( 5 ) . If similar levels of resolution could be achieved with plant cells, it should be possible to detect aneuploidy in a variety of plant species. Flow cytometry would then be a useful diagnostic adjunct to direct cytogenetic observation of karyotype deviations because it does not ...

No abstract

Biogeographical analyses reveal that subfamily Hyacinthoideae has originated in sub-Saharan Africa. S-DIVA indicates an early dispersal event to the Mediterranean region followed by a vicariance event, which resulted in Hyacintheae and Massonieae tribes. By contrast, BBM analysis favours dispersal to the Mediterranean region, eastern Asia and Europe. Biogeographical analysis suggests that sub-Saharan Africa and the Mediterranean region have played vital roles as centres of diversification and radiation within subfamily Hyacinthoideae. In this bimodal distribution pattern, sub-Saharan Africa is the primary centre of diversity and the Mediterranean region is the secondary centre of diversity. Sub-Saharan Africa was the source area for radiation toward Madagascar, the Mediterranean region and India. Radiations occurred from the Mediterranean region to eastern Asia, Europe, western Asia and India.

No abstract

Abstract. Specific stress treatments (sucrose starvation, alone or combined with a heat shock) applied to isolated tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.) microspores irreversibly blocked normal gametophytic development and induced the formation of embryogenic cells, which developed subsequently into pollen-derived embryos by culture at 25~ in a sugar-containing medium. A cold shock at 4~ did not inhibit microspore maturation in vitro and did not induce cell division activity, even when combined with a starvation treatment. In the absence of sucrose, microspores isolated in the G1 phase of the cell cycle replicated their DNA and accumulated in G2. Late microspores underwent miotosis during the first day of culture which resulted in a mixed population of bicellular pollen grains and uninucleate microspores, both embryogenic. After the inductive stress treatments the origin of the first multicellular structures, formed in the sugar-containing medium, could be traced to divisions of the microspore cell or divisions of the vegetative cell of bicellular pollen, indicating that the symmetry of microspore mitosis in vitro is not important for embryogenic induction. These results represent a step forward towards a unified model of induction of embryogenesis from microspores/pollen which, within a relatively wide developmental window, are competent to deviate from normal gametophytic development and initiate the alternative sporophytic programme, in response to specific stress signals.