An examination of the co-evolutionary relationships among mating system, lifespan and chromosome number in the Rosaceae and Asteraceae.

摘要

The purpose of this study was to determine whether mating system co-evolves with life span, chromosome number or both in the Rosaceae and the Asteraceae. Maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods as implemented in BayesMultistate and BayesDiscrete were used. It was hypothesized that: (I) SI will break down in the presence of polyploidy in the Rosaceae (which has a GSI system), (II) SI will not break down in the presence of polyploidy in the Asteraceae (which has an SSI system), (III) Herbs will be associated with SC in the Rosaceae and (IV) Annuals will be associated with SC in the Asteraceae. The analyses show that co-evolutionary relationships were supported in all analyses. Results show that mating system co-evolves with lifespan and chromosome number in both families. However, the strong relationship between polyploidy and chromosome number in the Rosaceae may be causing spurious conclusions.