New data on genome size in 128 Asteraceae species and subspecies, with first assessments for 40 genera, 3 tribes and 2 subfamilies

Abstract

The Asteraceae family has been broadly studied, but the values of genome size of only 3.5% of their species are known. To expand these data, we carried out a flow cytometric study of nuclear DNA content in a wide range of taxa of this family, filling gaps in some less studied groups. In addition, some chromosome counts have been performed (46 taxa, including the first one in two species and one subspecies). We provide genome size data for 167 taxa (184 accessions). Of these, data are new for 128 species and subspecies (141 accessions), 40 genera, three tribes (Barnadesieae, Gochnatieae and Nassauvieae) and two subfamilies (Barnadesioideae and Gochnatioideae). Most values (about 75%) are small or very small (1C ≤ 3.5 pg). The second reports on 17 species previously studied with other methods (i.e. first flow cytometric assessments) are also given. Finally, we contribute results for 22 species for which a first flow cytometric assessment has been published during the preparation of this article. The current data-set moves the percentage of coverage approximately from 3% to 4.7% at the specific level, from 6% to 11.6% at the generic level, from 34.9% to 41.9% at the tribal level and from 33% to 50% at the subfamily level.

Keywords::

• Chromosome number
• Compositae
• C-value
• flow cytometry
• nuclear DNA amount
• nuclear DNA content

Acknowledgements

Ricard Àlvarez, Pere Barnola, Esperança Carrió, Jaume Comas, Francisco Fernandes, Xavier Font, Susana Freire, José García, María Isabel Giménez, Amelia Gómez, Chari González, Jean Hidalgo, Carles Ibarria, Katsuhiko Kondo, Arnau Mercadé, Sergio Moreira, Màrius Mumbrú, Mélica Muñoz, Carlos Nóbrega, Jaume Pellicer, Mara R. Ritter, Angel M. Romo, Arnoldo Santos-Guerra, Maria-Edita Solić, Ignasi Soriano, John Twibell, Eulàlia Velasco, Josep Vicens and Sébastien Vilandrau are thanked for help in plant collection and/or determination and/or management, Xènia Fernández Sala for help to carry out some of the chromosome counts and Alastair Plant for English text revision.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data relating to this article is available online at doi:10.1080/11263504.2013.863811.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Dirección General de Investigación Científica y Técnica – Government of Spain [grant number CGL2010-22234-C02-01/BOS], [grant number CGL2010-22234-C02-02/BOS]; the Generalitat de Catalunya (“Ajuts a grups de recerca consolidats”) [grant number 2009SGR0439]. O. H. and S. G. benefited from Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral contracts of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness – Government of Spain.