Electrophoretic Data and Plant Speciation

Abstract

Electrophoretic information is a useful supplement to other data used to infer modes of speciation in plants. With regard to primary speciation (evolutionary divergence), available data from enzyme electrophoresis indicate that: 1) rapid and recent speciation is correlated with little or no allozyme divergence; and 2) geographical modes of speciation are evidenced by divergence at genes coding soluble enzymes. Isozyme data are useful for testing hypotheses of hybrid specia- tion at the diploid level. Enzyme electrophoresis may also provide useful information for distin- guishing auto- and allopolyploids, and for determining the diploid progenitors of the latter.