Genome size constancy in Antarctic populations of Colobanthus quitensis and Deschampsia antarctica

• Published in: Polar biology Vol. 43; no. 9; pp. 1407 - 1413
• Main Authors: Pascual-Díaz, Joan Pere, Serçe, Sedat, Hradecká, Ivana, Vanek, Martin, Özdemir, Bahar Soğutmaz, Sultana, Nusrat, Vural, Mehtap, Vitales, Daniel, Garcia, Sònia
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01-09-2020; Springer; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Analysis; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Chromosomes; Colobanthus quitensis; Deschampsia antarctica; Diploids; Ecology; Flow cytometry; Flowering; Flowering plants; Genetic research; Genomes; Genomics; Life Sciences; Microbiology; Oceanography; Plant Sciences; Plants (botany); Ploidy; Population studies; Populations; Short Note; Zoology; Genome size; Flow cytometry; Antarctic peninsula; Nuclear DNA content; C-value
• ISSN: 0722-4060; 1432-2056
• DOI: 10.1007/s00300-020-02699-y

Colobanthus quitensis
(Kunth) Bartl. and
Deschampsia antarctica
Desv., the only two native flowering plants in the Antarctica, are interesting study cases from the ecological, biogeographic, and evolutionary points of view. Here, we present the first genome size analysis focused in several populations from the Antarctic Peninsula and the surrounding islands for both species, with a broad sampling distributed along a distance of 800 km. We have used flow cytometry to estimate genome size, being the first time that this technique is used for
D. antarctica.
Average genome sizes for
D. antarctica
(2C = 10.63 pg) and
C. quintesis
(2C = 2.01 pg) are consistent with the scarce previous data available, and point to a diploid and tetraploid ploidy level, respectively, for the analysed taxa. Despite a certain deviating individual in
D. antarctica
, whose higher genome size could suggest the existence of B-chromosomes, no significant genome size differences were found amongst the populations studied, for both species, which might be related with the recent colonisation history of the Antarctic continent.