Polyploidy and long-distance dispersal

Polyploidy and long-distance dispersal

Most of the numerous and remarkable range disjunctions across the southern oceans are probably the result of occasional long-distance dispersal, rather than of vicariance. Linder and Barker study the grass subfamily Danthonioideae, which probably reached its current global distribution by a number of long-distance dispersal events during the Neogene, and show that such dispersal is much more likely in polyploid than in diploid species. It is possible that polyploidy facilitates post-dispersal establishment, and it is postulated that the frequent occurrence of polyploidy in the grasses may thus have facilitated their long-distance dispersal, and hence contributed to the remarkable success of the family.