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A 15-Myr-Old Genetic Bottleneck, Timothy Paape, Boris Igic, Stacey Dewitt Smith, Richard Olmstead, Lynn Bohs, Joshua R. Kohn

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Balancing selection preserves variation at the self-incompatibility locus (S-locus) of flowering plants for tens of millions of years, making it possible to detect demographic events that occurred prior to the origin of extant species. In contrast to other Solanaceae examined, SI species in the sister genera Physalis and Witherinigia share restricted variation at the S-locus. This restriction is indicative of an ancient bottleneck that occurred in a common ancestor. We sequenced 14 S-alleles from the subtribe Iochrominae, a group that is sister to the clade containing Physalis and Witherinigia. At least 6 ancient S-allele lineages are represented among these alleles, …