Plastid sequences are a cornerstone in plant systematic studies and key aspects of their evolution, such as uniparental inheritance and absent recombination, are often treated as axioms. While exceptions to these assumptions can profoundly influence evolutionary inference, detecting them can require extensive sampling, abundant sequence data, and detailed testing. Using advancements in high-thr...

Interspecific hybridization and introgression can lead to partial genetic homogenization at certain neutral loci between morphologically distinct species and may obscure the species delimitation using nuclear genes. In this study, we investigated this phenomenon through population genetic survey of two alpine plants (Gentiana siphonantha and G. straminea) in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, where the...

Hybridization is increasingly being recognized as a widespread process, even between ecologically and behaviorally divergent animal species. Determining phylogenetic relationships in the presence of hybridization remains a major challenge for evolutionary biologists, but advances in sequencing technology and phylogenetic techniques are beginning to address these challenges. Here we reconstruct ...

MOTIVATION Hybridization events in evolution may lead to incongruent gene trees. One approach to determining possible interspecific hybridization events is to compute a hybridization network that attempts to reconcile incongruent gene trees using a minimum number of hybridization events. RESULTS We describe how to compute a representative set of minimum hybridization networks for two given bi...

Rose mallows belong to the Muenchhusia section of the Hibiscus genus. They represent a small group of cold tolerant North American plants and are popular ornamentals mainly because of their abundant, large and colorful flowers. Due to their geographical origin they are well suited for garden use in temperate regions worldwide. The aim of the study was to investigate hybridization barriers in cr...

Interspecific hybridization often induces epigenetic remodeling that leads to transposon activation, gene expression changes, and loss of imprinting. These genomic changes can be deleterious and contribute to postzygotic hybrid incompatibility. In Arabidopsis, loss of genomic imprinting of PHERES1 and presumed failure of Polycomb Repressive Complex contributes to seed inviability observed in A....

Genome size (or C-value) can present a wide range of values among eukaryotes. This variation has been attributed to differences in the amplification and deletion of different noncoding repetitive sequences, particularly transposable elements (TEs). TEs can be activated under different stress conditions such as interspecific hybridization events, as described for several species of animals and p...

There are many ways to genetically modify fish including inbreeding, gynogenesis, androgenesis, selection, intraspecific crossbreeding, interspecific hybridization, polyploidy, sex reversal and breeding, nuclear transplantation and transgenesis. Cloned populations have been produced via gynogenesis and androgenesis (Dunham 2004 in press), but direct cloning of an individual fish of interest has...

We infer post-hybridization rearrangements in a hybrid genome, given the gene orders on its chromosomes and some knowledge of the two parent genomes. We study this in two biologically and computationally different contexts, genome fusion and interspecific fertilization. Exact algorithms are furnished for some cases, and a heuristic based on the Hannenhalli-Pevzner theory for another.

Oaks (Quercus spp.) are considered model plants for studying plant evolution and natural gene introgression. Beijing area is at the junction between Taihang Mountain Yanshan Mountain, it an overlapping distribution of several deciduous oaks native to China. Interspecific hybridization often occurs in sympatric sibling species, resulting blurred interspecific boundaries hindering development bre...