‘Genetic erosion during evolutionary radiation and its impact on the reproductive systems of Latin American plants: the genus Hypochaeris (Asteraceae) as model’

Anass Terrab, Carlos Marcelo Baeza Perry, Clara de Vega Durán, Claudete de Fátima Ruas, Estrella Urtubey, Juan Luis García Castaño, Karin Tremetsberger, María de los Ángeles Ortiz Herrera, María Jesús Gallego Cidoncha, Regina Berjano Pérez, Salvador Talavera Lozano, Tod F. Stuessy.

We check our hypothesis using the endemic Latin American species of the Hypochaeris genus, which, according to a recent study (Tremetsberger et al., 2005), are the phylogenetic sisters of a taxon living in high-montane marshland in Morocco (North Africa).

It would seem that the diversification and subsequent speciation of the American species took place less than one million years ago, and, as evolutionary processes interact at different levels, we have selected the two processes we see as most likely to have influenced species differentiation: (1) genome variability, using AFLP; and (2) the diversity of the self-incompatibility systems of the plants making up the populations.

As well as verifying what is a novel scientific idea, this study will shed light on the singularity of these populations as regards their genetic diversity and their crossing systems; two key aspects for predicting species conservation. This is particularly vital as our planet is living through one of its most critical moments since the last glaciation; known by the name of climate change.