“…If errors of DNA replication accompany mitosis and are not selectively removed during vegetative growth of the plant (eg, by cell lineage sorting), they can be passed on to the gametes (Klekowski, 1988). It has been argued that somatic mutation may play an important role in producing adaptive variability among plant shoots (Whitham and Slobodchikoff, 1981;Antolin and Strobeck, 1985;Walbot, 1996), in allele frequency change within populations (Orive, 2001), and in life-history patterns of inbreeding depression and mating system evolution (Morgan, 2001). If somatic mutations are passed on to gametes this may result in genomic mutation rates that are higher in plants than in animals, especially in long-lived plants where there may be many somatic cell divisions prior to gamete production (Klekowski and Godfrey, 1989).…”