Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998 14:03:17 -0500 (EST) From: "Carl Strohmenger (HSC)" <cstrohme@com1.med.usf.edu> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg3450$foo@default> Subject: Re: Sarracenia evolution
On Thu, 29 Oct 1998, Bill Tribe wrote:
>
> Specifically, I started wondering about this because of the existence of
> a few species in the mountainous regions, whereas the majority exist on the
> coastal plains. So then I asked which came first; i.e. if we are looking
> at, say, S. oreophila, is it likely that this was an evolutionary ancestor
> of S. flava - with a migration from the mountains - or the other way round.
> These sort of questions might find clues in the age of the mountain ranges
> compared with "estimates" of the evolutionary timescale of the plants,
> numbers which I haven't the slightest idea of.
>
It seems likely that neither was the ancestor of the other, but rather that
they share a common, probably extinct, ancestor. I remember reading that a
detailed analysis of the genetic information of a set of plant species can
give some idea of how far (in time) they are genetically from each other.
This would require determining the DNA sequences for all the species
involved, would it not?
- Carl
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