Natural hybridization between genera that diverged from each other approximately 60 million years ago.
Journal Article (Journal Article)
A fern from the French Pyrenees-×Cystocarpium roskamianum-is a recently formed intergeneric hybrid between parental lineages that diverged from each other approximately 60 million years ago (mya; 95% highest posterior density: 40.2-76.2 mya). This is an extraordinarily deep hybridization event, roughly akin to an elephant hybridizing with a manatee or a human with a lemur. In the context of other reported deep hybrids, this finding suggests that populations of ferns, and other plants with abiotically mediated fertilization, may evolve reproductive incompatibilities more slowly, perhaps because they lack many of the premating isolation mechanisms that characterize most other groups of organisms. This conclusion implies that major features of Earth's biodiversity-such as the relatively small number of species of ferns compared to those of angiosperms-may be, in part, an indirect by-product of this slower "speciation clock" rather than a direct consequence of adaptive innovations by the more diverse lineages.
Full Text
Duke Authors
Cited Authors
- Rothfels, CJ; Johnson, AK; Hovenkamp, PH; Swofford, DL; Roskam, HC; Fraser-Jenkins, CR; Windham, MD; Pryer, KM
Published Date
- March 2015
Published In
Volume / Issue
- 185 / 3
Start / End Page
- 433 - 442
PubMed ID
- 25674696
Pubmed Central ID
- 25674696
Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)
- 1537-5323
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
- 0003-0147
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
- 10.1086/679662
Language
- eng