Abstract
A high-mountain dwarf plant of Lysimachia japonica (Primulaceae) endemic to Yakushima is reported to be very unique in the dwarfing mechanism at cell level, and the plant is one of the candidates to be a key species to reveal the unsolved molecular mechanism of taxon-specific body size of plant. In the present study, we examined the crossability between the dwarf plant of L. japonica and its normal-sized lowland counterpart, and self- and cross-compatibilities within each linage. The results indicate that both dwarfed and normal-sized L. japonica are self- and cross-compatible within each ecotype and are bidirectionally cross-compatible with each other, suggesting that this plant possesses optimum life historical traits for further genetic analysis in order to clarify the mystery of molecular mechanism of taxon-specific body size.
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Acknowledgements
We wish to express our special gratitude to Prof. Hiroshi Tobe, Prof. Hidetoshi Nagamasu and Dr. Hiroshi Azuma for their helpful comments. We also thank Ms. Eri Kawaguchi and Mr. Tomizo Yamamoto for taking care of the plants used in the present study. This study was financially supported by Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) No. 24770074 from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) No. 15K07188 from the JSPS, the Mitsui & Co., Ltd. Environment Fund (No. R10-D124), a Grant for Basic Science Research Projects from The Sumitomo Foundation (No. 140909) to WS, and the Global Center of Excellence Program A06 “Formation of a Strategic Base for Biodiversity and Evolutionary Research: from Genome to Ecosystem” of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan, to Kyoto University.
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Handling editor: Hiroshi Tobe.
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Kakezawa, A., Tamura, M.N., Agata, K. et al. Crossability of a high-mountain dwarf variety of Lysimachia japonica (Primulaceae) endemic to Yakushima Island with its normal-sized lowland counterpart. Plant Syst Evol 303, 807–813 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-017-1410-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-017-1410-2