Adil GÜNER, Vehbi ESER - optima

GENOME SIZE OF ECHINOPS L. (ASTERACEAE, CARDUEAE) IN THE
WEST BALKANS:
AN ATTEMPT TO ELUDE THE FRESH MATERIAL REQUIREMENT
Ismael SÁNCHEZ-JIMÉNEZ 1 , Oriane HIDALGO 2 , Miguel Ángel CANELA 3 , Sonja
SILJAK-YAKOVLEV 4 , Marija Edita ŠOLI� 5 , Joan VALLÈS 6 , Teresa GARNATJE 1
1 Institut Botànic de Barcelona (CSIC-ICUB), Passeig del Migdia s.n., 08038 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
ismasanchez83@gmail.com
2 Plant Development and Evolution, Department of Environmental and Plant Biology, Ohio University, 500
Porter Hall, Athens OH 45701, USA
3 Managerial Decision Sciences, IESE Business School, Universidad de Navarra, Av. Pearson 21 08032
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
4 Ecologie, Systématique & Evolution, UMR CNRS 8079, Université Paris-Sud, Bât. 360, 91405 Orsay Cedex,
France
5 Institute “Mountain and Sea”, Franjevacki put 1, 21300 Makarska, Croatia
6 Laboratori de Botànica, Facultat de Farmàcia, Universitat de Barcelona, Av. Joan XXIII s.n., 08028 Barcelona,
Catalonia, Spain
Echinops is a large genus comprising more than 100 species distributed in tropical Africa, the
Mediterranean basin and other temperate regions of Eurasia. Seven of the species of this
genus (with several subspecies) are present in the Balkan region.
Genome size is an important biodiversity character of great interest in ecological, taxonomical
and evolutionary studies. Fresh material is generally required to estimate the genome size by
flow cytometry (FCM), and therefore, once collected, the majority of plant species must be
analyzed within a rather short time interval. This constitutes an important problem for
determining the nuclear DNA amount of plants growing in remote places and/or collected
during long expeditions.
This work aims (1) to analyze the genome size from two material types, silica-gel dried and
fresh tissues, with a view to test whether material collected in the field is suitable for genome
size measurements when conserved in silica-gel; (2) to test the influence of the preparation of
nuclei suspensions by different methods in the genome size measurements; (3) to investigate
biological and ecological parameters that could influence the nuclear DNA amount within the
group of species considered.
This work provides the first genome size reports for 21 populations of 8 taxa, and the first
chromosome number determination for Echinops graecus, E. sphaerocephalus subsp albidus,
and E. spinosissimus subsp neumayeri. Our preliminary results do not support the use of
silica-gel dried material for genome size measurements. On the contrary, the preparation
method of the material and the conservation method of the standard (silica gel dried or not) do
not significantly affect genome size measurements. Genome size values discriminate each one
of the taxa considered (species or subspecies), and could be related to parameters such as
altitude and latitude.
Keywords: Compositae, chromosome number, dried tissues, flow cytometry, nuclear DNA
amount.
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