Abstract.
Armeria pseudoarmeria and A. welwitschii, two endemics from the atlantic coast in the centre of Portugal, are shown to be quite distinct by multivariate morphological analyses. In their contact zone around Cabo da Roca, hybrid populations comprising parental morphs and intermediates occur in abandoned agricultural fields. A proportion of intermediates is partially male sterile while others are fully fertile, indicating a rapid recovering of total fertility by some hybrids. The reproductive fitness traits we investigated do not suggest that the hybrids are inferior to the parents but rather that they could be adapted to the hybrid zone environment. Although being a very distinct species among the Iberian Armeria, A. pseudoarmeria is able to cross successfully with A. welwitschii in natural conditions.
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This work was supported by CGRI (Communauté Française de Belgique), ‘Instituto de Cooperação Científica e Tecnológica Internacional’ (Portugal) and the ‘Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique’ - Belgium. Thanks are due to ‘Instituto da Conservação da Natureza’ and ‘Parque Natural Sintra-Cascais’ for allowing the collect of plants in situ. We acknowledge the two anonymous referees for constructive comments and Olivier Hardy for critically reading a previous version of this manuscript and for linguistic review.
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Tauleigne-Gomes, C., Lefèbvre, C. Natural hybridisation between two coastal endemic species of Armeria (Plumbaginaceae) from Portugal. 1. Populational in situ investigations. Plant Syst. Evol. 250, 215–230 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-004-0247-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00606-004-0247-7