A Breakdown of Obligate Mutualism on a Small Island: An Interspecific Hybridization between Closely Related Fig Species (Ficus pumila and Ficus thunbergii) in Western Japan
Read full paper at: http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=53241#.VLh5HsnQrzE Author(s) Lum Tsai 1 , Hiroshi Hayakawa 2 , Tatsuya Fukuda 3 , Jun Yokoyama 4* Affiliation(s) 1 Graduate Schools of Science and Engineering, Yamagata University, Yamagata, Japan . 2 National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan . 3 Faculty of Agriculture, Kochi University, Nankoku, Kochi, Japan . 4 Faculty of Science, Yamagata University, Yamagata, Japan . ABSTRACT Ficus (Moraceae) is a well-known group with specific pollination mutualisms, and hybridization is considered to be rare. Here, we report the presence of interspecific hybrids between Ficus pumila L. and F. thunbergii Maxim. on Okinoshima, a small island offshore of Shikoku, western Japan. AFLP (amplified fragment length polymorphism of genomic DNA) data suggested that more than one-fourth of individuals of morphological F. pumila...