Polyploidy and Novelty in Flowering Plants

Evidence for autotetraploidy in Plantago media and comparisons between natural and artificial cytotypes concerning cell size and fertility

“…According to Stebbins (1971) genome doubling by itself is not a help but a hindrance to evolutionary success. However, Levin (1983) and Cavalier-Smith (1985) consider genome doubling itself a source of evolutionary novelty.…”

What We Do (and Don't) Know About Ferns: <I>Dryopteris</I> (Dryopteridaceae) as a Case Study

“…A connection between hybridization and/or polyploidy and improved physiological performance has also long been suggested and intensively studied in angiosperms, particularly in crop species (e.g. Levin 1983;Leitch and Leitch 2008;Maherali et al 2009;Soltis et al 2010;te Beest et al 2011). Very few similar studies have been carried out in ferns, and these have reached conflicting results about whether there are significant correlations of phenotypic or ecological traits with hybridization or ploidy level (e.g.…”

Population biology of intraspecific polyploidy in grasses

“…These changes can include change in Mendelian inheritance patterns and modification of dominance relationships, declines in fertility, loss of incompatibility, greater retention of genetic diversity under selfing and loss of interfertility with other members of the (former) species (Haldane, 1930;Mather, 1936;Fisher, 1949;Levin, 1983;Fowler & Levin, 1984;reviewed in Bever & Felber, 1993). There is a rich literature on the genetics of polyploids of agricultural importance, such as Solanum and Triticum (e.g.…”

“…What are the forces that increase ploidy level and allow higher ploidy levels to survive (cf. Levin, 1983;Fowler & Levin, 1984;Rodriguez, 1996a, b)? Are taxa found at different places in Stebbins' progression simply because of different periods since they originated, or is polyploidy adaptive in some contexts but not in others?…”