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Abstract Detail



Pteridological Section/AFS

Sessa, Emily [1], Givnish, Thomas [2], Barker, Michael [3].

Sequencing a Lazarus transcriptome: resurrecting “Dryopteris semicristata”.

The North American members of the fern genus Dryopteris have long fascinated botanists. The thirteen fertile taxa in this group include four allotetraploids, 1 allohexaploid, and four diploids long suspected of being progenitors of these allopolyploids. Recently Sessa and colleagues, using plastid and nuclear sequences, confirmed a long-standing hypothesis for the origin of these species that also involves an extinct diploid progenitor, “Dryopteris semicristata”. The genome of “D. semicristata” is present in three of the North American polyploids: the tetraploids D. cristata and D. carthusiana, whose second parents (D. ludoviciana and D. intermedia, respectively) each remain extant, and D. clintoniana, a hexaploid offspring of D. cristata. We also identified the “D. semicristata” genome in the apomictic taxa D. remota, found in Asia, and D. muenchii, an endemic of Mexican cloud forests, suggesting that “D. semicristata” was prolific geographically and that its genome has successfully persisted in several hybrid and non-hybrid offspring despite the original diploid going extinct. We set out to reconstruct the coding portion of the genome (transcriptome) of “D. semicristata” by sequencing the two allotetraploids D. cristata and D. carthusiana, and their extant second parents, D. ludoviciana and D. intermedia, using the Ion Torrent sequencing platform. By identifying the portions of the tetraploids’ transcriptomes that originated in the extant diploids, we can then assign the remaining genes to “D. semicristata”. This allows us to explore the gene content of an extinct plant taxon for the first time.

Broader Impacts:


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1 - University of Arizona, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, 1041 E Lowell Street, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA
2 - University of Wisconsin, Department of Botany, Birge Hall, 430 Lincoln Drive, Madison, WI, 53706, USA
3 - University of Arizona, Department of Biology, P.O. Box 210088, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA

Keywords:
ferns
transcriptome
allopolyploidy
Dryopteris
extinct taxon.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper:Papers for Sections
Session: 34
Location: Melrose/Riverside Hilton
Date: Tuesday, July 30th, 2013
Time: 4:30 PM
Number: 34012
Abstract ID:625
Candidate for Awards:None


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