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Plant over­comes infer­til­ity to give rise to a new species in Scotland

A new species of mon­key flower, cre­ated by the union of two for­eign plant species, has been dis­cov­ered on the bank of a stream in Scotland.

Genetic changes in this attrac­tive yellow-​flowered hybrid have allowed it to over­come infer­til­ity and made it a rare exam­ple of a brand new species that has orig­i­nated in the wild in the last 150 years. Thou­sands of wild species and some crops are thought to have orig­i­nated in this way, yet only a hand­ful of exam­ples exist where this type of species for­ma­tion has occurred in recent history.

The ances­tors of the new plant were brought from the Amer­i­cas as botan­i­cal curiosi­ties in the 1800s and were quickly adopted by Vic­to­rian gar­den­ers. Soon after their arrival, they escaped the con­fines of British gar­dens and can now be found grow­ing in the wild, along the banks of rivers and streams. Repro­duc­tion between these species pro­duces hybrids that are now wide­spread in Britain. Yet, genetic dif­fer­ences between the two par­ents mean that the hybrids are infer­tile and can­not go beyond the first generation.

Dr Mario Vallejo-​Marin, a plant evo­lu­tion­ary biol­o­gist at the Uni­ver­sity of Stir­ling, has doc­u­mented the first exam­ples of hybrid mon­key flow­ers that have over­come these genetic bar­ri­ers and show fully restored fer­til­ity. This fer­tile hybrid derived from ‘immi­grant’ par­ents rep­re­sents a new species, native to Scot­land. Dr Vallejo-​Marin has cho­sen to name this species Mimu­lus pere­gri­nus, which trans­lates as ‘the wan­derer’. The species is described in the open access jour­nal Phy­toKeys.

The dis­cov­ery will help sci­en­tists to under­stand how new species form. It is thought that many exist­ing plant species includ­ing crops such as wheat, cot­ton and tobacco may have orig­i­nated in a sim­i­lar way, but find­ing exam­ples of this process in action is rare. ‘This is an excit­ing oppor­tu­nity to study evo­lu­tion as it hap­pens,’ said Vallejo Marin. ‘We do not yet know how com­mon the new species is or how well it will fare, so the next step will be to find out its dis­tri­b­u­tion and whether its eco­log­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics, allow it to colonise envi­ron­ments that can­not be cur­rently exploited by its parents.’

The above news item is reprinted from mate­ri­als avail­able at Pen­soft Pub­lish­ers via EurekAlert!. Orig­i­nal text may be edited for con­tent and length.

(Source: EurekAlert!, 10.07.2012)