Genetic Diversity and Clonal Reproduction in Plant Populations

Genetic diversity underpins the capacity of plant populations to adapt to changing environments, buffer against stochastic events and maintain ecosystem functions. In many taxa, including terrestrial herbs, seagrasses and macroalgae, clonal reproduction operates alongside sexual reproduction, generating networks of genetically identical modules that span metres to kilometres. This duality of reproductive modes shapes population structure, influencing gene flow, local adaptation and resilience to disturbance. Clonal propagation can preserve successful genotypes and support rapid colonisation, but excessive clonality may reduce genetic variation and adaptive potential. Understanding the balance between sexual recruitment and clonal spread is therefore critical for conservation, restoration and management of foundation species that sustain biodiversity and carbon sequestration.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Researchers have developed a molecular clock based on the accumulation of fixed somatic mutations to estimate the age of clonal genets, demonstrating its applicability across multicellular clonal species and revealing lifespans of over a millennium in eelgrass. Investigations of global phylogeography in a widely distributed seagrass have reconstructed its trans-Pacific and Atlantic colonisation history, showing that ocean currents, past glaciations and admixture events have driven divergent clades and markedly lower genetic diversity in Atlantic populations compared with Pacific source regions. A large-scale study of a tropical seagrass spanning the Atlantic basin contrasted empirical genetic differentiation with simulated oceanic dispersal, revealing that passive transport by currents underpredicts observed gene flow and implicating active vectors in shaping population connectivity.

Genetic Diversity and Clonal Reproduction in Plant Populations publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in genetic diversity and clonal reproduction in plant populations across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Genetic diversity: Variation in alleles and genotypes within and among populations.

Clonal reproduction: Asexual formation of new individuals genetically identical to a parent.

Genet: A distinct genetic individual originating from a single zygote and comprising all associated clonal modules.

Ramet: A physiologically independent module of a clonal organism capable of survival.

Clonal richness: The ratio of unique genotypes to the total number of sampled modules in a population.

Somatic mutation: Genetic changes occurring in non-reproductive cells that are propagated through clonal growth.

References

1. A somatic genetic clock for clonal species. Nature Ecology & Evolution (2024).
2. Ocean current patterns drive the worldwide colonization of eelgrass (Zostera marina). Nature Plants (2023).
3. Long range gene flow beyond predictions from oceanographic transport in a tropical marine foundation species. Scientific Reports (2023).
4. Genetic structure and diversity of the seagrass Zostera marina along a steep environmental gradient, with implications for genetic monitoring. Frontiers in Climate (2023).
5. High Prevalence of Clonal Reproduction and Low Genetic Diversity in Scutellaria floridana, a Federally Threatened Florida-Endemic Mint. Plants (2023).
6. Clones on the run: The genomics of a recently expanded partially clonal species. Molecular Ecology (2023).