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Phylogenomic Methods Reveal Ancient Hybridization in North American Royal Ferns
March 6 @ 5:30 pm - 11:30 pm
- Dr. Weston Testo, Assistant Professor in the Department of Plant Biology at the University of Vermont and Director of the Pringle Herbarium, Burlington, VT
- Hybrid at Harvard University at 5:30pm
- “Phylogenomic Methods Reveal Ancient Hybridization in North American Royal Ferns”
- Abstract: Hybridization has been shown to drive speciation in many evolutionary lineages, especially amongst certain groups of plants, such as ferns. While most hybrids are derived from mating events between closely related species, some exceptional cases of hybridization between deeply divergent lineages (up to ~60 MY) are known. Using samples obtained from herbarium specimens, we provide genomic evidence for natural hybridization between two genera of royal ferns (Osmundaceae) from eastern North America. As the deepest hybridization event known in plants or animals, this finding provides a new upper bound for the amount of time that can pass before reproductive barriers develop and poses questions about reproductive isolation in ferns and other seed-free plants. This work also highlights the role that herbaria play in supporting evolutionary studies in the genomics age.
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