Oral Paper

         Hybrids and Hybridization

Notes on the Genus Chloraea (Orchidaceae): Morphological Evidence of Triad Hybridization through a Conduit Species

Presenting Author
Justin Scholten
Description
Introgressive hybridization is known to affect the morphological structure of a population in many key ways. It can increase standing levels of morphological variation as adaptive radiation proceeds and enhance the potential for future evolution through accelerating or decelerating speciation, alleviating inbreeding depression in small populations, and the fixation of novel traits through transgressive segregation. Although hybridization is generally regarded as a common occurrence in most major lineages, especially plants, our understanding of interspecific breeding is largely limited to the study of two species. Infrequently, an interbreeding complex may arise between three species, where one species typically acts as a conduit for gene flow between two others that may rarely hybridize otherwise. A putative zone of triad hybridization involving three species of Chloraea (Orchidaceae): C. gaudichaudii, C. magellanica, and C. speciosa, is reported from Chubut, Argentina. Morphological data comprised of eight diagnostic floral characters show phenotypic intergradation within the species triad resulting from putative hybridization where C. magellanica appears to act as a conduit species to facilitate gene flow between C. gaudichaudii and C. speciosa; these findings illustrate how gene flow between three species can change the morphological demographic of a population and enhance the potential for evolutionary change.