I think the thesis is that plants (populations) that reproduce sexually should have higher potential to succeed as invaders across differing environments than plants that reproduce asexually, because sexual reproduction allows populations to shift their genetic makeup over time to better fit to their environment (whereas asexual reproduction just produces clones and the genetic makeup of the population never changes). There’s a central assumption here though that the initial populations of sexual vs. asexually reproducing species/populations have essentially similar niche conservatism to begin with. If they don’t, for instance if the asexual species is *already* more capable/adaptable/weedy/what-have-you (I.e. less niche-conserved) than the sexually reproducing one, I don’t see why that would change as a result of being introduced to a new location. On Fri, Jun 8, 2018 at 2:17 PM Mary Sue Ittner <msittner@mcn.org> wrote: > I'm not sure I understood the thesis. This plant is taking over coastal > Sonoma and Mendocino counties, California. But if you look at our photos > on the wiki, there are areas of South Africa that is it problematic too. > Photo take at Lion's Head. > > > https://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/files/… > > Mary Sue > > > > I am a postgraduate student at La Trobe University, Victoria, > > Australia, and my research project involves the modelling of species > > distribution of Watsonia meriana var. meriana, and its variety, W. > > meriana var. bulbillifera. One of my research goals is to show that W. > > meriana var. bulbillifera is likely to undergo ecological niche > > conservation, following its introduction to Australia, compared to its > > sexually-reproducing congener. This is based on my hypothesis that the > > asexually reproducing bulbil form would not have generated sufficient > > genetic diversity to spread into novel environments. > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net > http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… > _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/…
