Genome size in Cyperaceae

• Authors: BUREŠ Petr; ZEDEK František; ŠMARDA Petr; ROTREKLOVÁ Olga; HRALOVÁ Ivana
• Year of publication: 2008
• Type: Conference abstract
• MU Faculty or unit: Faculty of Science
• Description: In Cyperaceae the detection of polyploidy is complicated by chromosomal fusion and fragmentation (symploidy and agmatoploidy) due to holokinetic nature of chromosomes. Studying karyotype and genome size in Cyperaceae, we combined molecular methods, flow cytometry, and chromosome counts in Carex and Eleocharis. These genera are contrasting in number of species, evolutionary centres, ecological diversification, but mainly in genome size and chromosome size variation, which is in Eleocharis one of the largest known among angiosperm genera (from 8.1 to 296 Mbp). We analysed the following genomic parameters: genome size, chromosome number, chromosome size, AT/GC composition, Ty3-gypsy and Ty1-copia retrotransposons diversity and amount. Evolutionary dynamics of these species-specific parameters mapped onto phylogeny based on molecular sequence markers (ITS, trnL-F) was used for the evaluation of the role of: polyploidy, agmatoploidy, symploidy, and retrotransposon amplification or removal.

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