Ranunculus auricomusL. aggr. (Ranunculaceae) in Italy. I. Sexual tetraploids on the Apennines

Phylogenomics supported by geometric morphometrics reveals delimitation of sexual species within the polyploid apomicticRanunculus auricomuscomplex (Ranunculaceae)

“…Masci et al (1994) observed a diploid behavior, i.e., predominantly two alleles per isoenzyme locus in sexual R. marsicus , potentially suggesting allopolyploid origin for R. marsicus . However, during the filtering processes, only two alleles were allowed removing loci with more than two alleles and potentially biasing allelic diversity of R. marsicus .…”

“…Distr. : Central Italy (Masci & al., 1994; Dunkel, 2011); this paper, Table 1). Dunkel (2011) discriminated three varieties: var.…”

“…Ranunculus calapius, R. austroslovenicus , R. mediocompositus , R. peracris and R. subcarniolicus grow in Slovenia and Western Croatia, partly in close sympatry, and were recently described (Dunkel & al., 2018). Obligate sexual reproduction was ascertained previously for R. marsicus (tetraploids) by Masci & al., (1994) based on embryological studies, for R. cassubicifolius , R. carpaticola and R. notabilis using embryology and flow cytometric seed screening (FCSS) by Hojsgaard et al (2014, and previous literature therein) and Barke et al (2018), and for the other taxa included here by Dunkel et al (2018) using FCSS and/or pollen quality measurements. For other European species of the complex, apomixis was confirmed using embryological (Häfliger, 1943; Nogler, 1984) or cytological data (Rousi, 1956), large-scale FCSS screenings on more than 200 populations (Karbstein et al, in prep.…”

Species concepts in agamic complexes: Applications in theRanunculus auricomus complex and general perspectives

“…Therefore, agamospecies are always heterozygous in A+A-and polyploid, because diploid (dihaploid) apomicts would be unable to inherit the apospory factor by monoploid gametes (A-). On the other hand, sexual reproduction has been shown not only in diploid, but also in polyploid taxa (MAsCI et al 1994, HORANDL 1998 and is to be expected to exist in the other 2-3 known diploid taxa. Vegetative propagation through rhizome divisions occurs both in sexual and apomictic populations (HORANDL, unpubl.…”

New diploid species in the Ranunculus auricomus complex (Ranunculaceae) from W and SE Europe

“…Ranunculus marsicus is a sexual species of the Apennines with variable cytotypes (4x, 5x, 6x, 7x) (Spinosi 1998;Paule & al. 2018;Masci & al. 1994;Sgorbati & al.…”