Gene flow in a facultative apomictic poacea, the savanna grass Hyparrhenia diplandra

Abstract

The genetics of the poacea Hyparrhenia diplandra was studied in four natural populations from an ecological station in West Africa, where it makes up 80% of grasses from wet savanna and constitutes a dense continuum of randomly distributed individuals. DNA content and cytogenetical observations suggest it is an allotetraploid. Using two highly variable microsatellites (heterozygosity H = 0.615-0.616), we show that this species is an apomict with rare sexual reproduction events that account for ~0.5% of seeds pollinated in the wild. Hexaploid individuals were also produced, corroborating the observation of aberrant genotypes in the wild. The spatial extent of asexual clones in the field was low in comparison with the predominance of apomixis, thus indicating a low dispersal of seeds from their parent. Heterozygosity and departure from Hardy-Weinberg predictions were similar in the four populations, revealing a high apparent selfing rate (s = 0.599) among sexually produced seeds. This is an overestimate since we could not distinguish true selfing from reciprocal outcrosses between neighboring individuals from the same apomictic clone. Gene flow by pollen could be substantial, possibly explaining the absence of isolation by distance in the studied area.