Digital Commons Network^™

Heading For A Breakdown: Assessing Evolution Through The Hybridization Of Two Sexual Systems, Diamanda A. Zizis

Honors Theses

Hybridization is an important evolutionary pathway that has contributed to the world’s vast biodiversity. In plants, especially angiosperms, hybridization is known to be an important mechanism for speciation, phenotypic divergence, and changes in reproductive systems. Solanum species present an ideal system to investigate how hybridization between two different sexual systems impacts the reproductive and phenotypic biology of the hybrid progeny. Hybrid seeds were acquired from crosses between Australian Solanum species Solanum dioicum (dioecious) and S. ultraspinosum (andromonoecious) in order to track what happens when you cross two plants with different sexual systems. Vegetative and floral morphological measurements were conducted, and …