Genome size constancy in Antarctic populations of Colobanthus quitensis and Deschampsia antarctica

• Published in: Polar Biology
• Main Authors: Pascual-Díaz, Joan Pere, Serçe, Sedat, Hradecká, Ivana, Vanek, Martin, Özdemir, Bahar Soğutmaz, Sultana, Nusrat, Vural, Mehtap, Vitales, Daniel, Garcia, Sònia
• Other Authors: Ministerio de Asuntos Económicos y Transformación Digital (España), Generalitat de Catalunya
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Springer Nature 2020
• Subjects: Antarctic peninsula; C-value; Flow cytometry; Genome size; Nuclear DNA content; Antarctic; Antarctic Peninsula; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica; Polar Biology
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10261/254021; https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-020-02699-y; https://doi.org/10.13039/501100002809

Colobanthus quitensis (Kunth) Bartl. and Deschampsia antarctica Desv., the only two native flowering plants in the Antarctica, are interesting study cases from the ecological, biogeographic, and evolutionary points of view. Here, we present the first genome size analysis focused in several populations from the Antarctic Peninsula and the surrounding islands for both species, with a broad sampling distributed along a distance of 800 km. We have used flow cytometry to estimate genome size, being the first time that this technique is used for D. antarctica. Average genome sizes for D. antarctica (2C = 10.63 pg) and C. quintesis (2C = 2.01 pg) are consistent with the scarce previous data available, and point to a diploid and tetraploid ploidy level, respectively, for the analysed taxa. Despite a certain deviating individual in D. antarctica, whose higher genome size could suggest the existence of B-chromosomes, no significant genome size differences were found amongst the populations studied, for both species, which might be related with the recent colonisation history of the Antarctic continent. This work was supported by the Spanish [CGL2016-75694-P (AEI/FEDER, UE)], Catalan [Grant Number 2017SGR1116] and Turkish governments [Third Turkish Antarctic expedition ITÜ/PolReC]. SG is the holder of a Ramón y Cajal contract (RYC-2014-16608).