Month: September 2022

UNEVEN PLANT HYBRIDIZATION. "There is strong evidence that hybridization does not occur uniformly across all plant families, and hence spontaneous hybridization seems to be more prevalent in certain families and genera. A group with high levels of natural hybridization is Rhododendron. The genus has more than 1000 species, many of which are interfertile." https://lnkd.in/dK-A3iM View in LinkedIn

EXHAUSTIVE PLANT PHENOTYPING. Characters that were measured for R. delavayi , R. irroratum and intermediates. Leaf length. Leaf width. Distance apex-mid. Petiole length. Flowers in inflorescence. Corolla width. Corolla length. Distance anther-stigma. Style length. Style hair-cover. Stigma width. Bark. Indumentum. Corolla colour. Nectar pouches. Maculation. Stamen hairs. Ovary hairs. Ovary glands. Style colour. Style hairs. https://lnkd.in/dK-A3iM View in LinkedIn

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INDEX OF HYBRIDITY. "One of the objectives of this study was to assess how the two morphological characters ‘stamen hairs’ and ‘style hair-coverage’ behave with regards to a mixed genetic background. Therefore, it was desirable to assign an index of hybridity to each intermediate individual." https://lnkd.in/dK-A3iM View in LinkedIn

TRAITS VERSUS CONSENSUS. "The morphological characters ‘stamen hairs’ and ‘style hair-coverage’ were then tested for correlation with the above calculated hybrid index." https://lnkd.in/dK-A3iM View in LinkedIn

GENEROUS DELTA. "Apart from a few exceptions, the variances of repeated measurements for individuals of the same group were significantly different from each other." https://lnkd.in/dK-A3iM View in LinkedIn

STRONG PHENOTYPE DIFFERENCES. "Several characters were identified that could distinguish between the species. The quantitative characters that showed high discrimination potential ‘flowers in inflorescence’, ‘stigma width’, ‘corolla (width/length)’ and also ‘leaf (dist apex-mid/length)’, tended towards intermediate values for the hybrids. As quantitative characters are generally considered to be under polygenic control, this can be expected." https://lnkd.in/dK-A3iM View in LinkedIn

INTERMEDIATE PHENOTYPES. "Other qualitative characters, on the other hand, either tended towards the morphology seen in one of the parents (stamen hairs were mostly present in the intermediates, as in R. irroratum; ovary glands were consistently absent, as in R. delavayi or showed a combination of intermediate and parental characters (styles were either hairy, or glandular and hairy; and ovaries were either hairy, intermediate, or densely hairy." https://lnkd.in/dK-A3iM View in LinkedIn

INTERMEDIATE VERSUS PARENTAL. "While intermediacy is often the expected state in hybrids, it has been shown when averaging over several studies that only about half of the characters in hybrids for interspecific crosses were intermediate, with other characters approaching the morphology of one of the parents." https://lnkd.in/dK-A3iM View in LinkedIn

BELL CURVE IN SPECIATION. "Darwin already noted that there is an evolutionary continuum between varieties and species. This implies that taxa described as varieties (or subspecies) should be groups of individuals that possess evolutionary relevant properties distinguishing them consistently from other members of the species." https://lnkd.in/dK-A3iM View in LinkedIn