MRI: Acquisition of a Ploidy Analyzer at Chicago Botanic Garden

Chicago Horticultural Society, Glencoe IL

Investigators

Abstract

An award is made to the Chicago Botanic Garden (CBG) to acquire a ploidy analyzer that will be utilized for conservation and horticultural research; for practical plant conservation activities; and for secondary, post-secondary, and graduate education and other collaborative projects. Variations in ploidy (the number of sets of chromosomes in a cell) play an important role in both plant and fungal evolution and diversity. Differences in plant ploidy also have significant practical applications, from the selection of appropriate plants for restoration projects to its impact on breeding and selection of agronomic and horticultural crops. The traditional method of analyzing ploidy via chromosome fixation, staining, and microscopic analysis is time consuming, inexact, and impractical for analyzing a large volume of samples. The ploidy analyzer will allow the rapid, inexpensive, and high-sample volume processing of plant and fungal DNA ploidy and nuclear genome size. This will broadly enhance CBG?s conservation and horticulture research, education programs, permanent plant collections activities, and other collaborations. CBG staff will disseminate their research results to professional, scientific, and public audiences through scientific and popular publications, presentations, on-site interpretation and displays, and through CBG?s website. The public will also benefit from enhanced restoration practices for natural areas, from improved ornamental plants for garden use, and from opportunities to serve as students, volunteers, and outside partners on the projects made possible by the ploidy analyzer. Chicago Botanic Garden conservation studies encompass the biology of small, fragmented populations; the genetics of both rare and invasive plant species, as well as fungal populations; plant and fungal responses to climate change and to ecosystem management; and spatial and temporal patterns of molecular genetic diversity in populations. The ploidy analyzer will make possible such studies as delineation of seed transfer zones for restoration studies of species with varied ploidy levels, and assessing seed longevity in storage of species with varied ploidy, as the larger cell sizes of higher ploidy seed can impact the longevity of frozen seed. The ploidy analyzer will also impact CBG?s horticultural programs, such as affording the breeding program the ability to match the ploidy of the parents used in crosses, assess the ploidy of plants treated to increase their ploidy, and aid in developing sterile triploid forms of landscape plants to avoid potential invasions. The ploidy analyzer will also be made available to regional conservation researchers and restoration practitioners as well as to commercial and independent plant breeders that do not access to this equipment.