Abstract
Colobanthus quitensis (Kunth) Bartl. and Deschampsia antarctica Desv., the only two native flowering plants in the Antarctica, are interesting study cases from the ecological, biogeographic, and evolutionary points of view. Here, we present the first genome size analysis focused in several populations from the Antarctic Peninsula and the surrounding islands for both species, with a broad sampling distributed along a distance of 800 km. We have used flow cytometry to estimate genome size, being the first time that this technique is used for D. antarctica. Average genome sizes for D. antarctica (2C = 10.63 pg) and C. quintesis (2C = 2.01 pg) are consistent with the scarce previous data available, and point to a diploid and tetraploid ploidy level, respectively, for the analysed taxa. Despite a certain deviating individual in D. antarctica, whose higher genome size could suggest the existence of B-chromosomes, no significant genome size differences were found amongst the populations studied, for both species, which might be related with the recent colonisation history of the Antarctic continent.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Oriane Hidalgo for her advice in plant flow cytometry. Elizabeth McCarthy is also acknowledged for assistance in English language revision.This work was supported by the Spanish [CGL2016-75694-P (AEI/FEDER, UE)], Catalan [Grant Number 2017SGR1116] and Turkish governments [Third Turkish Antarctic expedition ITÜ/PolReC]. SG is the holder of a Ramón y Cajal contract (RYC-2014-16608).
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JPPD, DV, NS and SG designed the study. SS, BSO and MV collected the plants. IH, MV, JPPD, DV and SG performed the flow cytometric analysis. JPPD and DV performed the statistical analysis. JPPD, DV and SG drafted the manuscript. All authors contributed to the final version of the manuscript.
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Pascual-Díaz, J.P., Serçe, S., Hradecká, I. et al. Genome size constancy in Antarctic populations of Colobanthus quitensis and Deschampsia antarctica. Polar Biol 43, 1407–1413 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-020-02699-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-020-02699-y