| Abstract Detail
Development and Structure Williams, Joseph [1]. Consequences of whole genome duplication on 2n pollen performance traits. The vegetative cell of the flowering plant male gametophyte (pollen) functions as a free-living, single-celled organism that transports sperm to egg. Whole-genome duplication (WGD) should have strong effects on pollen because of genetic effects of the haploid to diploid transition, and because most phenotypic effects of WGD manifest at the cell level. The mechanistic effects of WGD on 2n pollen performance traits are poorly known and often confounded with post-WGD evolution. Here I review what we know of the earliest stages of 2n pollen performance trait evolution, from unreduced neo-2n pollen of diploids to reduced 2n pollen of artificial/spontaneous, old cultivated, and wild autotetraploids. WGD doubles gene number and bulk nuclear DNA mass, and 2n pollen retains a substantial proportion of paternal sporophyte heterozygosity, depending on ploidy and mode of inheritance. Dosage, heterozygosity and genome size have consequences for gene regulation and expression as well as epigenetic effects on cell architecture. Pollen volume doubling is a universal effect of WGD, whereas an increase in aperture number is common among taxa with simultaneous microsporogenesis and pored apertures, mostly eudicots. WGD instantly affects numerous evolved compromises among mature pollen functional traits and these are rapidly shaped by highly diverse tissue interactions and pollen competitive environments in the early post-WGD generations. 2n pollen phenotypes generally incur higher performance costs, and the degree to which these are met or evolve by scaling up provisioning and metabolic vigor needs study.
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Related Links:
Williams lab website
EEB faculty webpage
1 - University of Tennessee, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Knoxville, TN, 37919, USA
Keywords:
polyploidy
Whole genome duplication
Function
pollen
Pollen aperture
cell size.
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: DS3, Development and Structure III
Location: /
Date: Thursday, July 22nd, 2021
Time: 10:00 AM(EDT)
Number: DS3001
Abstract ID:304
Candidate for Awards:None |
