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The Corroboree
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trucha

Yet another interesting paper

Question

Schlumpberger & Renner. 2012. MOLECULAR PHYLOGENETICS OF ECHINOPSIS (CACTACEAE):

POLYPHYLY AT ALL LEVELS AND CONVERGENT EVOLUTION

OF POLLINATION MODES AND GROWTH FORMS. American Journal of Botany 99(8): 1335–1349.

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(post deleted)

Edited by Quixote

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anyone wanna dumb that down for us

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uhhh,.... "more then we need to know" ;-) but there are surely some information junkies among us :D

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anyone wanna dumb that down for us

Flowers and general look of the plants alone are not a conclusive tool to judge between the affinity of certain cacti as these traits are very labile and can change within just one or two generations. For example, if you crossbreed two diffrent types of cacti, you can end up getting something entirely new within just one generation. I´ve seen crosses between Trichocereus and Matucana that produced very weird plants. You wouldnt be able to tell what the parents are just by looking at them. Its very hard to figure out the actual genetic affinity and connection only based on the general appearance of the plant. So its necessary to use genetics to re-organise the taxonomic system.

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Hmm...

What happens if you cross a bat pollinated cacti with a bee pollinated cacti? This may not happen in the wild if the cacti are really picky about their pollinator...

Is the pollinator, such as: Bee, Bird, Moth etc. a good indicator as to which species of cacti interbreed easily?

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I had a quick flick through but I don't know much about the classification of cacti. Were there any surprises in the paper? Any particular trich that didn't fit in genetically, that was unexpected?

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