Apomixis goes a long way: Genetic evidence of persistence and long‐distance seed dispersal in an ancient landscape
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Aim Apomixis is a widespread trait in extreme environments worldwide, yet phylogeographical studies for species exhibiting these complex reproductive systems are still limited to temperate zones in the Northern Hemisphere. Through analyses of a combination of adult plants and seedlings, and nuclear and chloroplast DNA, we assessed the contemporary genetic outcomes of apomixis and phylogeographical patterns in an arid unglaciated landscape to understand the evolutionary trajectory of apomictic species. Location Pilbara bioregion, north‐western Australia. Taxon Senna glutinosa subsp. glutinosa . Materials and Methods Spatial patterns of genetic diversity and differentiation in three chloroplast regions and 17 nuclear microsatellite markers were evaluated in 480 plants from 20 populations of S. glutinosa subsp. glutinosa across the Pilbara bioregion. We also germinated and genotyped seed for a progeny analysis to quantify polyembryony and the relative frequency of asexual versus sexual reproduction. Results We found frequent polyembryony and a high proportion of asexual offspring (84.56%), resulting in low within‐population genotypic diversity. The nuclear dataset identified 72 multilocus lineages (MLLs) with moderate pairwise population genetic fixation and low differentiation among populations with no geographically structured genetic clustering. Chloroplast DNA showed high haplotype diversity and a widespread distribution of haplotypes. Only one peripheral population presented a single unique haplotype and MLL. Main Conclusions Analysis of this woody perennial in an arid landscape shows the influence of apomixis on genetic patterns and species persistence. Haplotype diversity was indicative of long‐term persistence within the ancient Pilbara region. Widespread distribution of haplotypes and sharing of several nuclear MLLs among distant populations indicated extensive seed dispersal throughout the study area. The combination of polyploidy, facultative apomixis and extensive seed dispersal maintains genetic variability within local populations and promotes the spread of advantageous genotypes across wide geographical distances. Therefore, apomixis, rather than an evolutionary ‘dead‐end’, can be regarded as a mechanism facilitating evolutionary success of apomictic species in extreme and complex environments.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".