Format: ORAL

Ana Delaunay Caperta

LEAF—Linking Landscape, Environment, Agriculture and Food Research Center, Associate Laboratory TERRA, Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Universidade de Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017 Lisboa, Portugal.

Breeding systems were extensively studied by Baker, who has been influential in the development of evolutionary and biogeographical hypotheses for Plumbaginaceae, as in Limonium (sea-lavenders). This genus is a remarkable case-study as apomicts have a large general distributional success, although most of the relevant questions were not yet answered which hampers an understanding about apomixis origins. Limonium species present a polymorphic sexual system associated to flower polymorphisms such as ancillary pollen and stigma and/or heterostyly, under sporophytic control that prevents self and intramorph mating. Most sexual and apomict species are self-incompatible, the first usually form meiotically reduced embryo sacs and viable pollen. While apomicts can originate unreduced embryo sacs and pollen ranging from low to high fertility or it is not produced at all. To explore the mechanisms beyond these reproduction modes, ovule transcriptome profiling of sexual and apomict species was carried out. Our investigations revealed several novel challenges, among which female-male interactions associated with reproduction modes.