Deciphering complex reticulation in aquatic plants: what is the relationship among climate oscillations, hybridization and polyploidization?

Principle investigator: Zdeněk Kaplan (BÚ AVČR, Průhonice)
Co-investigator from the department: Petr Koutecký
Funding provider: the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic
Grant No.: 22-10464S
Duration: 2022- 2024

Aquatic plants show specific biological characteristics fundamentally affecting their genetic variation and evolution. In spite of this, they are largely ignored by evolutionary biology. The project aims at disentangling the pathways of reticulate evolution in Ranunculus sect. Batrachium (Water Crowfoots) as a model group of aquatic plants that is distinguished by enormous levels of polyploidy and hybridization. Using a holistic approach integrating cytogenetic methods, up-to-date DNA sequencing approaches and cutting-edge bioinformatics tools we will unravel the evolutionary history of this
group and reconstruct the genomic constitutions of allopolyploids. We will identify main evolutionary drivers that shaped this diversity as well as the role of the Quaternary climatic oscillations for triggering speciation processes in aquatics. Conclusions will supplement existing knowledge conducted on terrestrial plants and thus shed a new perspective on evolution of plants in general.