Identifying sex in non-fertile individuals of the moss Drepanocladus turgescens (Bryophyta: Amblystegiaceae) using a novel molecular approach.
Sex identification before sexual maturity is notoriously difficult in plants with separate sexes, but is crucial to address many life history related issues. To study the performance of the two sexes in the rarely sexually reproducing dioecious moss Drepanocladus turgescens a molecular sex marker is needed. The female-targeting marker previously developed for D. trifarius and D. lycopodioides amplifies for a few D. turgescens males, which can thus not be distinguished from females. In a significant addition to the earlier developed method we sequenced the portion successfully amplified by the primers PT-3f and PT-3r for six females and three males. Differences between males and females were revealed at five sequence positions. Examination of a total of fourteen females and seven marker amplifying males confirm that females and such males differ consistently at these positions. The usefulness of a previous protocol for moss sex identification is thus extended to another dioecious moss by the addition of a step where a portion of the sex-correlated region is sequenced.
Department of Botany, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Box 50007, 104 05, Stockholm, Sweden. lars.hedenas@nrm.se.
Lars
L
Hedenäs
Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Helsinki, PO Box 27, 00014, Helsinki, Finland.
Helena
H
Korpelainen
Department of Botany, Swedish Museum of Natural History, Box 50007, 104 05, Stockholm, Sweden.
Irene
I
Bisang
D001483:Base Sequence; D044002:Bryophyta / Q000235:genetics*; D005298:Fertility / Q000235:genetics; D005821:Genetic Techniques
Biased sex ratio; Genetic sex ratio; Molecular sex marker; New sequencing step