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Science 22 May 1987:
Vol. 236. no. 4804, pp. 947 - 949
DOI: 10.1126/science.236.4804.947
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Articles

Electrophoretic Evidence for Genetic Diploidy in the Bracken Fern (Pteridium aquilinum)

PAUL G. WOLF 1, CHRISTOPHER H. HAUFLER 1, and ELIZABETH SHEFFIELD 2

1 Department of Botany, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045.
2 Department of Cell and Structural Biology, University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, U.K.

Analysis of isozyme variability demonstrates that bracken fern (Pteridium aquilinum) has a diploid genetic system and expresses solely disomic inheritance patterns. Electrophoretic data indicate that genetically variable progeny are produced in natural populations after intergametophytic mating rather than by a process involving recombination between duplicated unlinked loci. Although some enzymes are encoded by more than one locus, this has resulted from subcellular compartmentalization of isozymes, and there is no evidence of extensive gene duplication resulting from polyploidy. The conclusions reached in this report differ from those which propose polyploidy as an adaptive mechanism for maintaining genetic variability in Pteridium and other homosporous pteridophytes.

Submitted on November 10, 1986
Accepted on March 13, 1987


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Genetic Map-Based Analysis of Genome Structure in the Homosporous Fern Ceratopteris richardii.
T. Nakazato, M.-K. Jung, E. A. Housworth, L. H. Rieseberg, and G. J. Gastony (2006)
Genetics 173, 1585-1597
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