Phenotypic consequences of polyploidy and genome size at the microevolutionary scale: a multivariate morphological approach

Abstract

Summary• Chromosomal duplications and increases in DNA amount have the potential to alter quantitative plant traits like flower number, plant stature or stomata size. This has been documented often across species, but information on whether such effects also occur within species (i.e. at the microevolutionary or population scale) is scarce.• We studied trait covariation associated with polyploidy and genome size (both monoploid and total) in 22 populations of Dianthus broteri s.l., a perennial herb with several cytotypes (2x, 4x, 6x and 12x) that do not coexist spatially. Principal component scores of organ size ⁄ number variations were assessed as correlates of polyploidy, and phylogenetic relatedness among populations was controlled using phylogenetic generalized least squares.• Polyploidy covaried with organ dimensions, causing multivariate characters to increase, remain unchanged, or decrease with DNA amount. Variations in monoploid DNA amount had detectable consequences on some phenotypic traits. According to the analyses, some traits would experience phenotypic selection, while others would not.• We show that polyploidy contributes to decouple variation among traits in D. broteri, and hypothesize that polyploids may experience an evolutionary advantage in this plant lineage, for example, if it helps to overcome the constraints imposed by trait integration.

Can resource costs of polyploidy provide an advantage to sex?

“…Recent direct empirical support for positive phenotypic effects of polyploidy (Ramsey, 2011) and indirect evidence for a connection between polyploidy and the evolution of novel adaptations (recently reviewed in Flagel and Wendel, 2009;Parisod et al, 2010;Balao et al, 2011) support the view that polyploidy is often beneficial.…”

FISH Karyotype Analysis of Four Wild Cucurbitaceae Species Using 5S and 45S rDNA Probes and the Emergence of New Polyploids in Trichosanthes kirilowii Maxim.

“…Geographical distribution plays an important role in facilitating hybridization between related species, or cytotypes, and creating natural polyploids (Balao et al, 2011;Wendel, 2000). Several mechanisms could have resulted in the present polyploid genomes.…”

“…Understanding the genomic history of these species may further facilitate the efficient exploitation of their desirable agricultural and medicinal traits. As desirable traits are partially influenced by ploidy (Balao et al, 2011;Comai, 2005), the medicinal properties of these hexaploid and decaploid cytotypes should be further studied (Minh et al, 2015;Ni et al, 2015;Seo et al, 2015).…”

Effects of polyploidy and reproductive mode on life history trait expression

“…2009), and greater adaptive potential (Otto and Whitton 2000; Balao et al. 2011; Martin and Husband 2012; Selmecki et al. 2015) to costs associated with ploidy effects on organismal ecology ( e.g ., increased sensitivity to nutrient limitation, Neiman et al.…”