Breeding system evolution in Tarasa (Malvaceae) and selection for reduced pollen grain size in the polyploid species.

Polyploidy, primarily allopolyploidy, has played a major role throughout flowering plant evolution with an estimated 30-80% of all extant angiosperms carrying traces of ancient or recent polyploidy. One immediate and seemingly invariant phenotypic consequence of genome doubling is larger cell size in polyploids relative to their diploid progenitors. In plants, increases in pollen grain and guard cell sizes exemplify this rule and are often used as surrogate evidence for polyploidy. Tarasa (Malvaceae), a genus of 27 species primarily distributed in the high (>3000 m) Andes, has numerous independently generated tetraploid species, most of which have pollen grains smaller than their putative diploid parents. The tetraploids are also unusual because they are annual, rather than perennial, in habit. Data correlate these apparent anomalies to a change in the breeding system within the genus from xenogamy (outcrossing) in the diploid species to autogamy (inbreeding) in the tetraploids, leading to a convergence in reduced floral morphology. The harsh environment of the high-elevation Andean habitats in which all the tetraploid annuals are found is implicated as a critical factor in shaping the evolution of these unusual polyploids.