Due to increased levels of heterozygosity, polyploids are expected to have a greater ability to adapt to different environments than their diploid ancestors. While this theoretical pattern has been suggested repeatedly, studies comparing adaptability to changing conditions in diploids and polyploids are rare. The aim of the study was to determine the importance of environmental conditions of or...

Polyploidy, or whole genome duplication, has been an important feature of eukaryotic evolution. This is especially true in flowering plants, where all extant angiosperms have descended from polyploid species. Here we present a broad comparative analysis of the effect of polyploidy on flowering plant diversity. We examine the widely held hypothesis that polyploid flowering plants generate more d...

A series of aggregation-deficient (aggregateless) mutants were isolated in genetically marked haploid strains of the cellular slime mould Dictyostelium discoideum. Diploids were produced from pairs of such haploid mutants by a fusion system based on this organism's parasexual cycle. The diploids were isolated from the haploids by using complementation of non-allelic growth-temperature-sensitive...

Chemically induced polyploids were obtained by the colchicine treatment of shoot tips of Humulus lupulus L. 'Sybilla'. Flow cytometry revealed that most of the treatments resulted in the production of tetraploids. The highest number of tetraploids was obtained when explants were immersed in 0.05% colchicine for 48 h. A field experiment was conducted to compare diploid and tetraploid plants and ...

Whole-genome multiplication, or polyploidy, is common in angiosperms and many species consist of multiple cytotypes that have different physiological tolerances. However, the relative importance of genome duplication vs post-duplication evolutionary change in causing differentiation between cytotypes is not known. We examined the water relations of Chamerion angustifolium, a herbaceous perennia...

Aim To assess evidence for geographical and environmental range expansion through polyploidy in wild potatoes ( Solanum sect. Petota ). There are diploids, triploids, tetraploids, pentaploids and hexaploids in this group. Location Wild potatoes occur from the south-western USA (Utah and Colorado), throughout the tropical highlands of Mexico, Central America and the Andes, to Argentina, Chile an...

Adaptation in diploids is predicted to proceed via mutations that are at least partially dominant in fitness. Recently, we argued that many adaptive mutations might also be commonly overdominant in fitness. Natural (directional) selection acting on overdominant mutations should drive them into the population but then, instead of bringing them to fixation, should maintain them as balanced polymo...

In wild-type diploid cells of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, an HO endonuclease-induced double-strand break (DSB) at the MAT locus can be efficiently repaired by gene conversion using the homologous chromosome sequences. Repair of the broken chromosome was nearly eliminated in rad52delta diploids; 99% lost the broken chromosome. However, in rad51delta diploids, the broken chromosomes were repaired a...

We tested the hypothesis that the time course of the evolution of antifungal drug resistance depends on the ploidy of the fungus. The experiments were designed to measure the initial response to the selection imposed by the antifungal drug fluconazole up to and including the fixation of the first resistance mutation in populations of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Under conditions of low drug concen...

Polyploidy is a common phenomenon in the evolution of angiosperms. It has been suggested that polyploids manage harsh environments better than their diploid relatives but empirical data supporting this hypothesis are scarce, especially for trees. Using microsatellite markers and flow cytometry, we examine the frequency of polyploids and diploids in a progeny trial testing four different populat...