Testing the impacts of polyploid using duckweed

Whole genome duplication is a common macro mutation that can lead to immediate speciation. Polyploids, including duckweed, can differ greatly in their traits (e.g., increased body size) compared to their diploid progenitors. Yet, polyploids must overcome major ecological challenges in order to establish and persist in the face of competition with their much more common diploids progenitors. In collaboration with Dr. Tia-Lynn Ashman’s Lab, we are exploring how duckweed neopolyploid lineages perform under various abiotic and biotic conditions thought to promote their establishment. We are also part of the NSF funded Polyploid Integrative Institute (PI3) a large collaborative with the goal of revealing the commonalities and distinct roles of polyploidy across lineages of life and at diverse levels of biological levels of organizations more information here.

RELEVANT PUBLICATIONS:

With the help of several hundred undergraduates, we measured how synthetically produced neotetraploid duckweeds have higher tolerance to six urban water pollutants (Open Access)

We tested whether plant polyploid alters the preference and performance of herbviores (Open Access)

We found that neopolyploid duckweed assemble more diverse microbiomes (Available here).

Neopolyploids grow more slowly than diploids, irrespective of nutrient conditions, but differ in a life history tradeoff (Open Access).