CONTENS - International Organization of Plant Biosystematists

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From individuals to populations: the impact of flow cytometry on
understanding polyploid evolution in mountain plants
Jan Suda
Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Benátská 2,
CZ-128 01 Prague, Czech Republic & Institute of Botany, Academy of Sciences,
Průhonice 1, CZ-252 43 Průhonice, Czech Republic; suda@natur.cuni.cz
Flow cytometry (FCM) is a powerful technology that simultaneously measures and
analyses multiple parameters of single particles (cells, nuclei). Since the 1980s, use
of FCM in plant population and evolutionary biology, biosystematics, and ecology has
expanded dramatically both in scope and frequency, addressing primarily questions
of phenotypic manifestation, spatial distribution, and evolutionary dynamics of
genome duplication (polyploidy). Estimating differences in nuclear DNA content, FCM
offers many advantages over other methods of detecting ploidy, high speed and
reliability in particular, which paves the way for large-scale surveys at the landscape,
population, individual, and tissue levels. Representative samplings allowed gaining
novel insights into the extent of intra- and inter-population ploidy variation, niche
differentiation, and ecological preferences of particular cytotypes. The technique is
ideally suited for the detection and quantification of rare evolutionary episodes. An
attractive feature is the possibility to reformulate former taxonomic concepts and
propose robust classifications based on detailed understanding of population
structure and phenotypic differentiation of polyploid alliances under investigation.
Discrimination among homoploid taxa and their hybrids, based on differences in
genome size, is another power of FCM. In combination with other, notably molecular,
techniques, FCM promises qualitative advances in our understanding of genome
multiplication and the population biology of vascular plants. Examples from both
European (e.g., Androsace, Anthoxanthum, Empetrum, Pilosella, Senecio,
Vaccinium) and extra-European (e.g., Lasiocephalus, Lychnis, Swertia) mountain
plants will be discussed.
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