Viscum album in Japan: Chromosomal translocations, maintenance of heterozygosity and the evolution of dioecy

Abstract

The genusViscum is very suitable for study of structural rearrangements in chromosomes, having very large chromosomes, low basic number and very little polyploidy. An extensive survey of the dioecious speciesV. album (n=10) in Japan has revealed the widespread occurrence of several different chromosomal translocation complexes. Male plants are always heterozygous for large sex-associated translocation complexes, having 6II ⊙8 (six bivalents and a ring-of-eight) or 5II ⊙10 or rarely 4II ⊙12 at meiosis. Female plants are homozygous for these complexes, usually having 10II. There is also a floating ⊙4 which occurs in both male and female plants. Female plants may be heterozygous for another ⊙4 or ⊙6, which do not occur in male plants. Models are presented to account for the relationship between all of the translocations involved.

The high levels of translocation heterozygosity are probably important in maintaining heterozygosity in the species for large complexes of adaptive genes. However the sex-associated permanent translocation heterozygosity may have originally been established as a mechanism to stabilize dioecy based on non-allelic unlinked genes for maleness and femaleness.