We investigated the transferability of 20 Fragaria vesca microsatellite primer pairs to 13 Fragaria vesca accessions, six Fragaria species and ten commercially important species in Rosaceae. Genetic diversity studies were carried among 16 diploid Fragaria accessions using these polymorphic microsatellites. The average number of alleles amplified for a polymorphic locus was 4.7 with maximum bein...

Apparent photosynthesis and dark respiration were followed during development in four light environments of leaves of Fragaria virginiana Duchesne. Leaf expansion was completed more rapidly the higher the growth photon flux density and leaves senesced more quickly in high light. Maximum photosynthetic capacity coincided with the completion of blade expansion and declined quickly thereafter. Lea...

The subgenomic compositions of the octoploid (2n = 8× = 56) strawberry (Fragaria) species, including the economically important cultivated species Fragaria x ananassa, have been a topic of long-standing interest. Phylogenomic approaches utilizing next-generation sequencing technologies offer a new window into species relationships and the subgenomic compositions of polyploids. We have conducted...

The cultivated strawberry, Fragaria ×ananassa, is one of the youngest domesticated plants. Its 18th century origin via hybridization in Europe between the North American F. virginiana and the South American F. chiloensis was documented by the botanist Antoine Nicolas Duchesne. His 1766 "Natural History of Strawberries" is an extraordinary work that integrates fundamental discoveries on the biol...

Studies of clonal plant foraging generally focus on growth responses to patch quality once rooted. Here we explore the possibility of true plant foraging; the ability to detect and respond to patch resource status prior to rooting. Two greenhouse experiments were conducted to investigate the morphological changes that occur when individual daughter ramets of Fragaria vesca (woodland strawberry)...

Multiple closely related species with genomic sequences provide an ideal system for studies on comparative and evolutionary genomics, as well as the mechanism of speciation. The whole genome sequences of six strawberry species (Fragaria spp.) have been released, which provide one of the richest genomic resources of any plant genus. In this study, we first generated seven transcriptome sequences...

Compared with other members of the family Rosaceae, the chloroplast genomes of Fragaria species exhibit low variation, and this situation has limited phylogenetic analyses; thus, complete chloroplast genome sequencing of Fragaria species is needed. In this study, we sequenced the complete chloroplast genome of F. × ananassa 'Benihoppe' using the Illumina HiSeq 2500-PE150 platform and then perfo...

Strawberry (Fragaria sp.) stands as an interesting model for studying flowering behaviour and its relationship with asexual plant reproduction in polycarpic perennial plants. Strawberry produces both inflorescences and stolons (also called runners), which are lateral stems growing at the soil surface and producing new clone plants. In this study, the flowering and runnering behaviour of two cul...

Whole-genome duplications are radical evolutionary events that have driven speciation and adaptation in many taxa. Higher-order polyploids have complex histories often including interspecific hybridization and dynamic genomic changes. This chromosomal reshuffling is poorly understood for most polyploid species, despite their evolutionary and agricultural importance, due to the challenge of dist...

Macrosynteny and colinearity between Fragaria (strawberry) species showing extreme levels of ploidy have been studied through comparative genetic mapping between the octoploid cultivated strawberry (F. xananassa) and its diploid relatives. A comprehensive map of the octoploid strawberry, in which almost all linkage groups are ranged into the seven expected homoeologous groups was obtained, thus...