Pk. Diggle et al., CLONAL DIVERSITY IN ALPINE POPULATIONS OF POLYGONUM-VIVIPARUM (POLYGONACEAE), International journal of plant sciences, 159(4), 1998, pp. 606-615
Asexual reproduction is extremely common among arctic and alpine speci
es, and successful sexual reproduction may be rare. In asexual populat
ions, the absence of segregation and recombination predicts reduced le
vels of genetic variation. Thus, genetic diversity within arctic and a
lpine plant populations may be quite low. Allozyme analysis of three a
lpine populations of Polygonum viviparum, a common herbaceous perennia
l with no observed sexual reproduction, revealed surprising levels of
genetic diversity. There were 23 unique clones within a sample of 150
ramets. Few clones were large or distributed among all three sample po
pulations; the majority of clones was rare (n less than or equal to 5)
and unique to a single population. Genotypic diversity differed among
the three sample populations. The number of clones and measures of di
versity and evenness were much lower in the fell-field population than
in wet meadow and dry meadow populations. Overall, genotypic diversit
y and structure of alpine P. viviparum are similar to other clonal spe
cies in which sexual reproduction is rare, and they are similar to the
average for clonal species in general.