Plant & Animal Genomes XV Conference

January 13-17, 2007
Town & Country Convention Center
San Diego, CA

Universal Markers For The Compositae And Genetic Diversity In Invasive And Wild Populations

Rick Kesseli¹ , Jan Chang¹ , Theodora Desronvil¹ , Kieran Ryan¹ , Jose Hierro² , Urs Treier³ , Heinz Muller-Schaerer³ , Kathy Reitsma⁴

¹  University of Massachusetts, 100 Morrissey Blvd.,Boston, MA, 02125, USA

²  University of Montana, Missoula, MT, 59812

³  University of Fribourg/Perolles, Chemin du Musee 10, Fribourg, CH-1700, Switzerland

⁴  North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 50011

In addition to several agronomically important species, the Compositae is also the home of many of the world’s most widespread and noxious weeds and invasive species. We have developed a set of “universal” markers for the species of the Compositae and are using these, other molecular markers and phenotypic data to explore the changes that differentiate invasive species from their native progenitors. The markers should be useful for generating a common set of genetic maps for species in the family as well as assessing levels of genetic diversity at an orthologous set of genes. We are currently examining populations of several species of Composites (e.g. Centaurea spp. and Cichorium spp.) native to Eurasia yet invasive to U.S. and other parts of the world and have found significant phenotypic and genetic differences between the populations. The impacts and future directions of this work will be discussed.