Microevolutionary processes on railway tracks in Geranium robertianum populations
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Abstract
A strongly modified habitat can be treated as “research field”, where microevolutionary processes in plants take place and can be traced. One of such areas are railway tracks. Difficult conditions for plant growth prevail there, including: insolation, water shortage and pollutions. This leads to natural selection, which favors microevolutionary processes. Geranium robertianum L. plants were tested, which occur on railway tracks (“track populations”) and in forests (“forest populations”), of north-eastern Poland. Totally, the phenotypic and genotypic diversity was checked in 20 track populations and 18 forest populations. The aim of the research was to check what was the taxonomic rank of a different biotype of G. robertianum, which is growing on the railway tracks in the village of Waliły-Station. The plants from this population in comparison to other studied populations were: smaller, had much smaller (about twice) and darker leaves with an increased level of anthocyanins (higher by a few – over a dozen % from plants from other track populations and about 50% from plants from forest populations). These features were preserved in the next generation (F1). However, molecular studies (AFLP) showed that the population from Waliły was not genetically distinct from other studied populations. The taxonomic rank of G. robertianum plants from the track population of Waliły-Station should be described as “form”. It is possible that this new form of G. robertianum plants could have arisen as a result of the occurrence of epigenetic processes, which could increase the phenotypic variability in G. robertianum and accelerate the adaptation of these plants to adverse conditions. The obtained results are an example of the initial stage of the process of microevolution in plants in anthropogenically transformed areas.
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2019. Microevolutionary processes on railway tracks in Geranium robertianum populations. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27793v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27793v1Author comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
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Competing Interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Author Contributions
Olga Bemowska-Kałabun conceived and designed the experiments, performed the experiments, analyzed the data, contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools, prepared figures and/or tables, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Paweł Wąsowicz conceived and designed the experiments, analyzed the data, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Łukasz Napora-Rutkowski performed the experiments, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Zuzanna Nowak-Życzyńska approved the final draft, advised on genetic research.
Małgorzata Wierzbicka conceived and designed the experiments, analyzed the data, authored or reviewed drafts of the paper, approved the final draft.
Data Deposition
The following information was supplied regarding data availability:
- Biometric data and relative anthocyanins content data (figures: 3-6, 8-12).
- Matrix 1, data for genetic analyzes (table 3, table 4, figure 13a, figure 14a, table 6).
- Matrix 2, data for genetic analyzes (table 3, table 5, figure 13b, figure 14b, table 6).
Funding
The studies were financed by the National Science Centre, Poland, project no. 2011/03/B/NZ8/03044. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
