Institute of Botany, Faculty of Biology, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland.
Doctoral School of Exact and Natural Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland.
PLoS One. 2024 Feb 27;19(2):e0298760. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0298760. eCollection 2024.
Stipa is a genus comprising ca. 150 species found in warm temperate regions of the Old World and around 30% of its representatives are of hybrid origin. In this study, using integrative taxonomy approach, we tested the hypothesis that hybridization and introgression are the explanations of the morphological intermediacy in species belonging to Stipa sect. Smirnovia, one of the species-rich sections in the mountains of Central Asia. Two novel nothospecies, S. magnifica × S. caucasica subsp. nikolai and S. lingua × S. caucasica subsp. nikolai, were identified based on a combination of morphological characters and SNPs markers. SNPs marker revealed that all S. lingua × S. caucasica samples were F1 hybrids, whereas most of S. magnifica × S. caucasica samples were backcross hybrids. Furthermore, the above mentioned hybrids exhibit transgressive morphological characters to each of their parental species. These findings have implications for understanding the process of hybridization in the genus Stipa, particularly in the sect. Smirnovia. As a taxonomic conclusion, we describe the two new nothospecies S. × muksuensis (from Tajikistan) and S. × ochyrae (from Kyrgyzstan) and present an identification key to species morphologically similar to the taxa mentioned above.
芨芨草属包含约 150 种，分布于旧大陆的暖温带地区，其中约 30%的代表种具有杂种起源。在本研究中，我们采用综合分类学方法，检验了杂交和渐渗是中亚山区物种丰富的芨芨草属 Smirnovia 节形态中间性的解释的假设。基于形态特征和 SNP 标记，我们鉴定了两个新的杂种种，即大芨芨草×高加索芨芨草亚种尼古拉和宽叶芨芨草×高加索芨芨草亚种尼古拉。SNP 标记显示，所有宽叶芨芨草×高加索芨芨草样本均为 F1 杂种，而大多数大芨芨草×高加索芨芨草样本为回交杂种。此外，上述杂种表现出向每个亲本种的形态性状的超越性。这些发现对于理解芨芨草属，特别是 Smirnovia 节中的杂交过程具有重要意义。作为分类学结论，我们描述了两个新的杂种种，即塔吉克斯坦的芨芨草×穆克苏亚种和吉尔吉斯斯坦的芨芨草×ochyrae 亚种，并提供了一个鉴别这些与上述分类群形态相似的物种的关键。
