Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 106, Issue 13, Pages 5246-5251Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0808012106
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Funding
- European Research Area in Plant Genomics
- Liljewalch and Sernander foundations
- Swedish Research Council for Environmental, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Award
- Max Planck Society
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Flowering plants often prevent selfing through mechanisms of self-incompatibility (S.I.). The loss of S.I. has occurred many times independently, because it provides short-term advantages in situations where pollinators or mates are rare. The genus Capsella, which is closely related to Arabidopsis, contains a pair of closely related diploid species, the self-incompatible Capsella grandiflora and the self-compatible Capsella rubella. To elucidate the transition to selfing and its relationship to speciation of C. rubella, we have made use of comparative sequence information. Our analyses indicate that C rubella separated from C. grandiflora recently (approximate to 30,000-50,000 years ago) and that breakdown of S.I. occurred at approximately the same time. Contrasting the nuclecitide diversity patterns of the 2 species, we found that C. rubella has only 1 or 2 alleles at most loci, suggesting that it originated through an extreme population bottleneck. Our data are consistent with diploid speciation by a single, selfing individual, most likely living in Greece. The new species subsequently colonized the Mediterranean by Northern and Southern routes, at a time that also saw the spread of agriculture. The presence of phenotypic diversity within modern C. rubella suggests that this species will be an interesting model to understand divergence and adaptation, starting from very limited standing genetic variation.
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