Author(s): Sequeira, Miguel Menezes de ; Díaz-Pérez, Antonio ; Santos-Guerra, Arnoldo ; Viruel, Juan ; Catalán, Pilar
Date: 2009
Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.13/4214
Origin: DigitUMa - Repositório da Universidade da Madeira
Subject(s): Diploidy; Festuca agustinii; F. donax; F. francoi; F. jubata; F. petraea; karyology; Diploidía; Cariología; .; Faculdade de Ciências da Vida
Menezes de Sequeira, M., Díaz-Pérez, A., Santos-Guerra, A., Viruel, J. & Catalán, P. 2009. Karyological analysis of the five na tive Macaronesian Festuca (Gramineae) grasses supports a dis tinct diploid origin of two schizoendemic groups. Anales Jard. Bot. Madrid 66(1): 55-63. A karyological analysis has been conducted of all five native Macaronesian Festuca grasses belonging to fine-leaved F. subg. Festuca sect. Aulaxyper and broad-leaved F. subg. Drymanthele sect. Phaeochloa Loliinae lineages. Chromosomal analyses were made in 30 plants corresponding to 17 populations of the fine leaved F. agustinii, F. jubata, F. francoi and F. petraea and 2 pop ulations of the broad-leaved F. donax. All counts except one tetraploid count were diploids, showing 2n = 14 chromosomes. Diploidy was confirmed for the robust F. donax, nested within a clade of relict ancestral fescues as reported in recent phyloge netic studies, and was also found in the more slender F. agus tinii, F. jubata, F. francoi and F. petraea, which are basal to a re cently evolved clade of polyploid red fescues. Karyotypes of the two groups are however distinct, with broad-leaved F. donax showing larger and more regular chromosomes and all four fine-leaved taxa showing smaller and more irregular submeta centric chromosomes. Our karyological data indicate that these two groups of diploid fescues correspond to distinct schizoen demics which apparently originated at different times after in dependent continental colonizations of Macaronesia
