ArticlePLoS biology2010
Aging in a long-lived clonal tree.
Article in PLoS biology, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers.
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Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed, 168 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mosaic Accumulation of Somatic Genetic Variation and Estimates of Age in the Long-Lived Reef-Building Coral Acropora palmata.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- Integrating Intrinsic Mechanisms, Environmental Drivers and Anthropogenic Influences in Long-Lived Tree Longevity.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Genome degradation in plant tissue culture.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- A distributive germline restricts the spread of new mutations.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
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- Minimizing detection bias of somatic mutations in a highly heterozygous oak genome.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2025Article
- Impacts of reproductive systems on grapevine genome and breeding.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Evolutionary signatures of the erosion of sexual reproduction genes in domesticated cassava (Manihot esculenta).G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2025Article
- A somatic genetic clock for clonal species.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Article
- Growing old while staying young : The unique mechanisms that defy aging in plants.EMBO reports · 2024Article
- Limited effects of population age on the genetic structure of spatially isolated forest herb populations in temperate Europe.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Genetic diversity within a tree and alternative indexes for different evolutionary effects.Quantitative plant biology · 2024Article
- A mutation in Arabidopsis SAL1 alters its in vitro activity against IPPlant molecular biology · 2022Article
- Chloroplast genomes in Populus (Salicaceae): comparisons from an intensively sampled genus reveal dynamic patterns of evolution.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Does Shoot Apical Meristem Function as the Germline in Safeguarding Against Excess of Mutations?Frontiers in plant science · 2021Review
- Somatic genetic drift and multilevel selection in a clonal seagrass.Nature ecology & evolution · 2020Article
- A phylogenomic approach reveals a low somatic mutation rate in a long-lived plant.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Plasticity in the growth habit prolongs survival at no physiological cost in a monocarpic perennial at high altitudes.Annals of botany · 2020Article
- Genetic and epigenetic Muller's ratchet as a mechanism of frailty and morbidity during aging: a demographic genetic model.Human genetics · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
From bacteria to multicellular animals, most organisms exhibit declines in survivorship or reproductive performance with increasing age ("senescence"). Evidence for senescence in clonal plants, however, is scant. During asexual growth, we expect that somatic mutations, which negatively impact sexual fitness, should accumulate and contribute to senescence, especially among long-lived clonal plants. We tested whether older clones of Populus tremuloides (trembling aspen) from natural stands in British Columbia exhibited significantly reduced reproductive performance. Coupling molecular-based estimates of clone age with male fertility data, we observed a significant decline in the average number of viable pollen grains per catkin per ramet with increasing clone age in trembling aspen. We found that mutations reduced relative male fertility in clonal aspen populations by about 5.8 x 10(-5) to 1.6 x 10(-3) per year, leading to an 8% reduction in the number of viable pollen grains, on average, among the clones studied. The probability that an aspen lineage ultimately goes extinct rises as its male sexual fitness declines, suggesting that even long-lived clonal organisms are vulnerable to senescence.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.