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Genome size variation in the Western Carpathian Sesleria (Poaceae) species

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Abstract

The genus Sesleria represents a taxonomically intricate polyploid complex of morphologically highly varied and weakly differentiated taxa. In the wider area of the Western Carpathians, the genus is represented by three tetraploid (S. caerulea, S. heufleriana, and S. uliginosa) and three octoploid (S. hungarica, S. sadleriana, and S. tatrae) species. Although these taxa play a dominant role in a number of plant communities, their identification is often problematic. We examined relative (RGS; 637 individuals, 49 populations) and absolute (AGS; 64 individuals, 19 populations) genome size variation of all six taxa and revealed that genome size could be an effective marker for their identification. Genome size allowed not only separation of the two ploidy levels (4x vs. 8x), but helped to identify at least four of the six studied species. Among tetraploids, RGS appeared to be diagnostic for S. heufleriana (even at individual level), but failed to differentiate S. caerulea from S. uliginosa. RGS appeared to be diagnostic for octoploid species at population level, although the identity of populations at Vršatec (Slovakia) and Naszály (Hungary) require further studies. We found that octoploid plants from Slavec (Slovakia), formerly identified as S. heufleriana, actually represent S. hungarica, which is the first reliable record of this species from Slovakia. In the geographically isolated or peripheral populations, an increased or decreased genome size has been detected.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Norbert Bauer (Dorog) and József Sulyok (Felsőtárkány) for their valuable information on Sesleria localities in Hungary, to Marek Šlenker (Bratislava) for help with the statistical analyses, to Nevena Kuzmanović (Belgrade) and to Martin A. Lysák (Olomouc) for valuable information on Sesleria species, and to Patrik Mráz (Praha) for valuable comments to the manuscript. Antal Halász (Budapest) is warmly thanked for assistance in field work at the type locality of S. sadleriana. This study was supported by the Grant Agency of Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic and Slovak Academy of Sciences VEGA (Grants No. 2/0131/16 and 2/0154/17). The work of LS was supported by the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA K 108992 Grant).

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  1. Plant Science and Biodiversity Centre, Institute of Botany, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dúbravská cesta 9, 84523, Bratislava, Slovak Republic

    Pavol Mereďa Jr., Monika Majerová, Ladislav Pekárik & Iva Hodálová

  2. Department of Botany, Hungarian Natural History Museum, PO Box 137, 1431, Budapest, Hungary

    Lajos Somlyay

  3. Faculty of Education, Trnava University, Priemyselná 4, PO Box 9, 91843, Trnava, Slovak Republic

    Ladislav Pekárik

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Online Resource 1. Karyological data of Central European Sesleria species.

Online Resource 2. Mean values of relative fluorescence intensities of Sesleria populations according to (a) Lazarević et al. (2015) and (b) this study.

Online Resource 3. Flow cytometric histograms of simultaneous analyses of DAPI-stained nuclei isolated from several Sesleria individuals.

Online Resource 4. Variation in relative fluorescence intensities of all 249 tetraploid Sesleria individuals.

Online Resource 5. Variation in relative fluorescence intensities of all 388 octoploid Sesleria individuals.

Online Resource 6. Mean predicted values and 95% confidence intervals from linear mixed models for relative, holoploid and monoploid genome size of Sesleria species/populations.

Online Resource 7. Variation in relative fluorescence intensities of tetraploid Sesleria populations.

Online Resource 8. Variation in relative fluorescence intensities of octoploid Sesleria populations.

Online Resource 9. Mean values of holoploid genome sizes (2C-values) of tetraploid Sesleria populations.

Online Resource 10. Mean values of holoploid genome sizes (2C-values) of octoploid Sesleria populations.

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Mereďa, P., Majerová, M., Somlyay, L. et al. Genome size variation in the Western Carpathian Sesleria (Poaceae) species. Plant Syst Evol 305, 845–864 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-019-01622-1

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