Frank R. Blattner

• Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research

Over more than 80 years, the collections of the German Federal Ex Situ Genebank for Agricultural and Horticultural Crops have grown to around 152,000 accessions of 3,000 species preserved at three locations: Gatersleben, Groß Lüsewitz and Malchow/Poel. More than 96% of the material is stored as desiccation-tolerant orthodox seeds according to the a...

Astragalus phanothrix has long been a taxonomically controversial species due to conflicting synonymizations and section placements. Originally described under sect. Onobrychium by Bornmüller in 1915, it was later transferred to sect. Hypoglottidei and synonymized with A. saganlugensis. Recent treatments synonymized it with A. cancellatus within se...

Hordeum bulbosum, the closest relative of barley (H. vulgare), is an important source of resistance genes for cereals in the Triticeae. This perennial and mainly outcrossing species occurs with two cytotypes: diploids thrive in the western and central parts of the Mediterranean, while autotetraploids extend from Greece mainly eastwards to western A...

Background The genus Astragalus is the largest and one of the most diverse genera of flowering plants, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, with a significant concentration of species in the Irano-Turanian region. Within this genus, section Hymenostegis is notable for its complexity and high levels of endemism, especially in northwestern Iran....

The genomes of many plants, animals, and fungi frequently comprise dispensable B chromosomes that rely upon various chromosomal drive mechanisms to counteract the tendency of non-essential genetic elements to be purged over time. The B chromosome of rye – a model system for nearly a century – undergoes targeted nondisjunction during first pollen mi...

Background Morphological uniformity in Tilia (Malvaceae s.l., Tilioideae) and unclear species delimitations resulted in over 500 names associated with the about 30 species of this genus. This is also an issue for the Hyrcanian Forest diversity hotspot of northern Iran, where between one and seven Tilia species were described to occur. We used genot...

Dysploidy is a crucial driver for species diversification by changing karyotypes through diploidization after a whole-genome duplication (WGD). A WGD could trigger repeat bursts but our knowledge about the evolutionary links between WGD, repeat bursts, and descending dysploidy is limited. Using Crocus as a model, we performed a panrepeatomic analys...

Papaver bracteatum, known for its high thebaine content and absence of morphine, has emerged as a promising alternative to opium poppy for codeine production. In this study, our objective was to create a diverse panel representing the natural variation of this species in Iran. To achieve this, we employed genotyping-by-sequencing to obtain genome-w...

The present study aims to reveal phylogenetic and phylogeographical patterns of the Eurasian species of Allium subg. Amerallium, covering 75% of the species in the Mediterranean region and East Asia, as well as 12 North American species representing most sections of the monophyletic American part of the subgenus. We sampled 38 species of A. subg. A...

The Euro-Siberian steppes have experienced large-scale range fluctuations due to the climatic changes of the Pleistocene that may have also fuelled reshuffling of past steppe vegetation. These species-rich steppe grasslands were much more widespread during glacials and contracted during interglacials, a dynamic which should also be reflected by the...

Background The increasing demand for saffron metabolites in various commercial industries, including medicine, food, cosmetics, and dyeing, is driven by the discovery of their diverse applications. Saffron, derived from Crocus sativus stigmas, is the most expensive spice, and there is a need to explore additional sources to meet global consumption...

Background: The increasing demand for saffron metabolites in various commercial industries, including medicine, food, cosmetics, and dyeing, is driven by the discovery of their diverse applications. Saffron, derived from Crocus sativusstigmas, is the most expensive spice, and there is a need to explore additional sources to meet global consumption...

Wild plants can contribute valuable genes to their domesticated relatives. Fertility barriers and a lack of genomic resources have hindered the effective use of crop-wild introgressions. Decades of research into barley’s closest wild relative, Hordeum bulbosum , a grass native to the Mediterranean basin and Western Asia, have yet to manifest themse...

Papaver bracteatum , known for its high thebaine content and absence of morphine, has emerged as a promising alternative to opium poppy for codeine production. In this study, our objective was to create a diverse panel representing the natural variation of this species in Iran. To achieve this, we employed genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) to obtain g...

Safflower (Carthamus tinctorius, Asteraceae) is a source of high-quality edible oil growing in moisture-limited environments. Despite its economic importance, the relationships to close wild species in Carthamus and the presence and relationships of ecotypes within safflower are still not fully clarified. Here we use genotyping-by-sequencing to ide...

Simple Summary In plants, the occurrence of polyploid lineages, which are plants with multiple instead of two sets of chromosomes, is quite common. Polyploids can originate as autopolyploids within a species or by combining the genomes of different species resulting in allopolyploids. Within the group of spring crocuses, a polyploid complex exists...

The genus Astragalus L. with about 3000 species is the largest genus of flowering plants. It is also the largest genus in the flora of Iran with more than 850 taxa. Astragalus cyclophyllon Beck is an endemic taxon belonging to Astragalus sect. Incani DC. It occurs scattered in the steppe and semi-steppe areas of the western and central parts of Ira...

Simple Summary Biological taxonomic research deals with the grouping of organisms into entities that reflect their evolutionary history and relationships. In the species-rich plant genus Astragalus, the systematic grouping of many species changed several times during recent decades, which indicates problems in correctly recognizing relationships ba...

A new section of Astragalus from Mt. Alvand, W Iran, was recognized namely Astragalus sect. Elvendia Bagheri & Maassoumi, sect. nov., which is described here based on A. leucargyreus Bornm. A full description and diagnosis of the new section are given and taxonomic relationships of the section and its allied taxa are discussed. Molecular phylogenet...

The Euro-Siberian steppe flora consists of warm- and cold-adapted species, which may have responded differently to Pleistocene glacials and interglacials. Genotyping-by-sequencing individuals from across the distribution range of the pheasant’s eye (Adonis vernalis), we aimed to gain insight into steppe florogenesis based on the species’ evolutiona...

Safflower ( Carthamus tinctorius ) is a source of high-quality edible oil growing in moisture-limited environments. Despite its economic importance, the relationships to close wild species in Carthamus and the presence and relationships of ecotypes within safflower are still not fully clarified. Here we use genotyping-by-sequencing to identify the...

The post‐Miocene climatic histories of arid environments have been identified as key drivers of dispersal and diversification. Here, we investigate how climatic history correlates with the historical biogeography of the Atacama Desert genus Cristaria (Malvaceae). We analyze phylogenetic relationships and historical biogeography by using next‐genera...

Astragalus section Hymenostegis is one of the important characteristic elements of thorn-cushion formations in the Irano-Turanian floristic region. In this paper, we examined the chromosome number of 17 species (15 new reports) and provide estimates of genome size for 62 individuals belonging to 38 taxa of A. sect. Hymenostegis, some species outsid...

The cultivation and domestication of plants are human-driven processes that change the biology and attributes of a plant. Ipheion uniflorum is a bulbous geophyte known as Spring Starflower whose cultivation dates back to the first half of the 19th century. At least seven cultivars have been developed from natural stands. However, comparative analys...

Capsella is a model plant genus of the Brassicaceae closely related to Arabidopsis. To disentangle its biogeographical history and intrageneric phylogenetic relationships, 282 individuals of all five currently recognized Capsella species were genotyped using a restriction digest-based next-generation sequencing method. Our analysis retrieved two ma...

Speciation proceeds through mechanisms that promote reproductive isolation and shape the extent of genetic variation in natural populations, and thus, its study is essential to understand the evolutionary processes leading to increased biodiversity. Chromosomal rearrangements are known to facilitate reproductive isolation by hybrid sterility and fa...

Nuclear ribosomal DNA (nrDNA) has displayed extraordinary dynamics during the evolution of plant species. However, the patterns and evolutionary significance of nrDNA array expansion or contraction are still relatively unknown. Moreover, only little is known of the fate of minority nrDNA copies acquired between species via horizontal transfer. The...

Constituting one of Earth’s major biomes, steppes are characterised by naturally treeless extra-tropical vegetation. The formation of the Eurasian steppe belt, the largest steppe region in the world, began in Central Asia during the Neogene. In the glacial stages of the Pleistocene, steppe displaced forest vegetation, which in turn recolonised the...

The geographical origin of watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) remains debated. While a first hypothesis suggests the center of origin to be West Africa, where the endemic sister species C. mucosospermus thrives, a second hypothesis suggests northeastern Africa where the white‐fleshed Sudanese Kordophan melon is cultivated. In this study, we infer bioge...

As a result of recent botanical expeditions to the north of Iran, we describe here a new endemic Allium species from Gilan province named Allium gilanense. Molecular and morphological data indicate that it belongs to Allium sect. Codonoprasum. We provide a morphological description, comparing Allium gilanense with the closest relative taxa A. lenko...

Allium schisticola is described from West Azarbaijan (Iran) as a new species. It is closely related to A. sabalense and A. sahandicum in having a similar flower color but differs by leaf, filament, and tepal characters. We investigated the phylogenetic relationship of the new species based on sequences of the chloroplast trnL-trnF and nuclear ribos...

Background and aims – Narrow endemics, characterized by small distribution areas and small effective population sizes are prone to extinction due to low genetic variation caused by genetic bottlenecks and drift together with the danger of habitat loss. Astragalus subrecognitus is an endemic species that only occurs in northwestern Iran in mountain...

Poor morphological and molecular differentiation in recently diversified lineages is a widespread phenomenon in plants. Phylogenetic relationships within such species complexes are often difficult to resolve because of the low variability in traditional molecular loci. Furthermore, biological phenomena responsible for topological incongruence such...

Plants, fungi and algae are important components of global biodiversity and are fundamental to all ecosystems. They are the basis for human well-being, providing food, materials and medicines. Specimens of all three groups of organisms are accommodated in herbaria, where they are commonly referred to as botanical specimens. The large number of spec...

Many conflicting hypotheses regarding the relationships among crops and wild species closely related to wheat (the genera Aegilops, Amblyopyrum, and Triticum) have been postulated. The contribution of hybridization to the evolution of these taxa is intensely discussed. To determine possible causes for this, and provide a phylogeny of the diploid ta...

Astragalus kazempourii is described as a new species from Firuzkuh in Tehran province, Iran. Morphological data and phylogenetic analyses of the nrDNA internal (ITS) and external transcribed spacer (ETS) regions places this species within sect. Hypoglottidei as sister of Astragalus parvarensis. The new species differs morphologically from A. parvar...

In hyper-arid habitats vegetation tends to be highly patchy with individual plant populations set widely apart from each other. In the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, rainfall is essentially absent, but fog occurring both at the coast and sometimes reaching inland areas supports patches of vegetation in an otherwise barren environment. Tillandsia...

Balsamocarpon brevifolium Clos (Fabaceae), an endangered endemic shrub of the Chilean Atacama Desert, nowadays occurs in fragmented populations, which are exploit since at least 200 years. Understanding its genetic diversity, population structure and distribution patterns are essential for conservation planning and sustainable management. Based on...

Astragalus is with nearly 3000 described species the largest genus of flowering plants. So far analyses of pollen characters have only been conducted for a few species of the groups within the genus. Here we analyse pollen grains of 22 species representative for Astragalus section Hymenostegis using scanning electron microscopy. We found the basic...

Many conflicting hypotheses regarding the relationships among crops and wild species closely related to wheat (the genera Aegilops, Amblyopyrum, and Triticum) have been postulated. The contribution of hybridization to the evolution of these taxa is intensely discussed. To determine possible causes for this, and provide a phylogeny of the diploid ta...

Crocus sativus, the saffron crocus, is the source of saffron, which is made from the dried stigmas of the plant. It is a male-sterile triploid lineage that ever since its origin has been propagated vegetatively. Its mode of evolution and area of origin are matters of long-lasting debates. Here we analyzed chloroplast genomes and genome-wide DNA pol...

Crocus sativus is the source of saffron, which is made from dried stigmas of the plant. It is a male-sterile triploid that ever since its origin has been propagated vegetatively. The mode of evolution and area of origin of saffron are matters of long-lasting debates. Here we analyzed chloroplast genomes, genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) data, nuclear...

Poor morphological and molecular differentiation in recently diversified lineages is a widespread phenomenon in plants. Phylogenetic relationships within such species complexes are often difficult to resolve because of the low variability in traditional molecular loci, as well as various other biological phenomena responsible for topological incong...

Poor morphological and molecular differentiation in recently diversified lineages is a widespread phenomenon in plants. Phylogenetic relationships within such species complexes are often difficult to resolve because of the low variability in traditional molecular loci, as well as various other biological phenomena responsible for topological incong...

Microsatellites (or simple sequence repeats, SSR) are widely used markers in population genetics. Traditionally, genotyping was and still is carried out through recording fragment length. Now, next‐generation sequencing (NGS) makes it easy to obtain also sequence information for the loci of interest. This avoids misinterpretations that otherwise co...

Saffron, Crocus sativus, is known as the most expensive spice by weight worldwide. It is a clonally propagated, male-sterile triploid that has advantages in maintaining the genetic characteristics of the plants but sterility simultaneously impedes any breeding advances by genetic improvement through crossing of different genotypes. To trace the evo...

Barley refers to the cereal Hordeum vulgare subsp. vulgare but also more generally to the barley genus Hordeum that, apart from cultivated barley, comprises more than 30 wild grass species distributed in temperate and arid regions of the world. Like wheat and rye, Hordeum belongs to the Triticeae tribe of grasses, most conspicuously characterized b...

Phylogenetic relationships among the taxa of Crocus series Crocus are still unclear, preventing the understanding of species diversity and the evolution of the important spice saffron (Crocus sativus). Therefore, we analyzed sequences of two chloroplast (trnL-trnF, matK-trnK) and three nuclear (TOPO6, ribosomal DNA ETS and ITS) marker regions to in...

Wild barley forms a two‐rowed spike with a brittle rachis, whereas domestic barley has two‐ or six‐rowed spikes with a tough rachis. As does domestic barley, “agriocrithon” forms a six‐rowed spike; however the spike is brittle the same as wild barley, which makes the origin of agriocrithon obscure. Haplotype analysis of the Six‐rowed spike 1 (vrs1)...

The taxa of Astragalus section Hymenostegis are an important element of mountainous and steppe habitats in Southwest Asia. A phylogenetic hypothesis of sect. Hymenostegis has been obtained from nuclear ribosomal DNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and plastid ycf1 sequences of up to 303 individuals from 106 species, including all 89 taxa currentl...

As a result of our taxonomic studies of Astragalus L. sect. Hymenostegis Bunge, we recognize nine new species of this genus from Zanjan Province in northwestern Iran, namely: A. atrokurdicus Maassoumi, F. Ghahrem., Bagheri & Podlech, A. austrotaromensis Maassoumi, F. Ghahrem., Bagheri & Podlech, A. dejectus Maassoumi, F. Ghahrem. & Bagheri, A. most...

Background Triticeae, the tribe of wheat grasses, harbours the cereals barley, rye and wheat and their wild relatives. Although economically important, relationships within the tribe are still not understood. We analysed the phylogeny of chloroplast lineages among nearly all monogenomic Triticeae taxa and polyploid wheat species aiming at a deeper...

Cistanthe longiscapa is an endemic annual herb and characteristic element of the Chilean Atacama Desert. Principal threats are the destruction of its seed deposits by human activities and reduced germination rates due to the decreasing occurrence of precipitation events. To enable population genetic and phylogeographic analyses in this species we p...

Significance A screen of Hordeum (barley) spp. genomes identified several instances of the presence of ribosomal DNA of panicoid origin. The Pooideae and Panicoideae lineages separated from one another around 60 Mya and are sexually incompatible. During the past 1–5 My, at least nine independent transfers of panicoid DNA into Hordeum seem to have o...

Astragalus L. is with about 2500 – 3000 species the largest genus of flowering plants. Astragalus section Hymenostegis occurs with about 80 species in Southwest Asia and includes around 75% of Iranian endemics. Taking into account species number, proportion of endemism, and distribution patterns it is likely that sect. Hymenostegis originated and d...

As a result of a taxonomic and phylogenetic revision of Astragalus section Hymenostegis we identified a new species of Astragalus from northwestern Iran, namely A. remotispicatus spec. nov., which is described and illustrated here. It is morphologically similar to A. karl-heinzii in possessing a lax inflorescence. Phylogenetic inference of the nucl...

ITS Sequences of examined taxa in this study. (DOCX)

TOPO6, a nuclear gene-marker region of subunit B of the plant homolog of archaean topoisomerase VI, occurs as single-copy locus in the haploid genome of most plant groups. The gene consists mainly of 19 exons and 18 introns, which provide conserved primer binding sites for PCR amplification in many angiosperm families combined with variable sequenc...

Allium subgenus Melanocrommyum is taxonomically one of the most complicated groups within Allium and its sectional delimitation has been changed several times. In the present study, the relationships among 136 individuals representing 28 species of the sections Acanthoprason and Asteroprason were surveyed using ISSR (inter simple sequence repeats)...

The C-value paradox remains incompletely resolved after >40 yr and is exemplified by 2,350-fold variation in genome sizes of flowering plants. The carnivorous Lentibulariaceae genus Genlisea, displaying a 25-fold range of genome sizes, is a promising subject to study mechanisms and consequences of evolutionary genome size variation. Applying genomi...

Polyploidization is an important speciation mechanism in the barley genus Hordeum. To analyze evolutionary changes after allopolyploidization, knowledge of parental relationships is essential. One chloroplast and 12 nuclear single-copy loci were PCR amplified in all Hordeum plus six outgroup species. Amplicons from each of 96 individuals were poole...

Our aim is to understand the evolution of species-rich plant groups that shifted from tropical into cold/temperate biomes. It is well known that climate affects evolutionary processes, such as how fast species diversify, species range shifts, and species distributions. Many plant lineages may have gone extinct in the Northern Hemisphere due to Late...

Background: Our aim is to understand the evolution of species-rich plant groups that shifted from tropical into cold/ temperate biomes. It is well known that climate affects evolutionary processes, such as how fast species diversify, species range shifts, and species distributions. Many plant lineages may have gone extinct in the Northern Hemispher...

As the result of surveying the relevant type specimens, together with macro‐ and micro‐morphological studies, chromosome counting and ITS sequencing, Astragalus trifoliastrum was found to be a species independent of A. laguriformis (with which it has peviously been synonymized). In contrast, A. wanensis , assumed to be a synonym of A. trifoliastrum...

Breeding of Citrullus spp. for various benefits has continuously raised interest particularly for economically important crops. However, the interspecific variations within the genus have remained obscure in many regards and the multitude of names for taxa and subtaxa eludes Citrullus breeders. In the absence of clear taxonomic differentiation, mol...

The taxonomically complicated Crocus series Verni is characterized by high intra- and interspecific variability of karyotypes (2n = 8 to 23). With the aim to get more insights into complex karyotype evolution and to clarify the taxonomy of this group we combined morphological (twelve characters), molecular (chloroplast DNA: trnL-trnF, ndhF; nuclear...

Recent phylogenetic analyses proved several infrageneric units within the genus Crocus to be para- or polyphyletic. In an attempt to arrive at a system of Crocus that closely reflects species relationships, we provide here phylogenetic, morphometric, geographic, and nomenclatorial data for the species of a narrower-defined, monophyletic Crocus seri...

Recent phylogenetic analyses proved several infrageneric units within the genus Crocus to be para- or polyphyletic. In an attempt to arrive at a system of Crocus that closely reflects species relationships, we provide here phylogenetic, morphometric, geographic and nomenclatorial data for the species of a narrower defined, monophyletic Crocus serie...