ArticleNature ecology & evolution2024
A somatic genetic clock for clonal species.
Article in Nature ecology & evolution, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- Stepwise emergence of recombination suppression precedes fissiparous asexuality in the planarian Schmidtea mediterranea.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Millennial clonal persistence and transposable element-biased somatic mutations in an herbaceous plant (Typha latifolia).Communications biology · 2026Article
- Branching architecture limits the number of fixed somatic mutations in trees.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2025Article
- Adaptive Potential of Intracolonial Genetic Variability in Coral Populations.Ecology and evolution · 2025Review
- Article
- Somatic Evolution of Stem Cell Mutations in Long-Lived Plants.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- The Influence of Spatial Distance and Environment on Small-Scale Genetic Variability in Eelgrass and Its Application for Restoration.Evolutionary applications · 2025Article
- Heteroplasmy Is Rare in Plant Mitochondria Compared with Plastids despite Similar Mutation Rates.Molecular biology and evolution · 2024Article
- A clock for clonal organisms.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
11 authors.
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Abstract
Age and longevity are key parameters for demography and life-history evolution of organisms. In clonal species, a widespread life history among animals, plants, macroalgae and fungi, the sexually produced offspring (genet) grows indeterminately by producing iterative modules, or ramets, and so obscure their age. Here we present a novel molecular clock based on the accumulation of fixed somatic genetic variation that segregates among ramets. Using a stochastic model, we demonstrate that the accumulation of fixed somatic genetic variation will approach linearity after a lag phase, and is determined by the mitotic mutation rate, without direct dependence on asexual generation time. The lag phase decreased with lower stem cell population size, number of founder cells for the formation of new modules, and the ratio of symmetric versus asymmetric cell divisions. We calibrated the somatic genetic clock on cultivated eelgrass Zostera marina genets (4 and 17 years respectively). In a global data set of 20 eelgrass populations, genet ages were up to 1,403 years. The somatic genetic clock is applicable to any multicellular clonal species where the number of founder cells is small, opening novel research avenues to study longevity and, hence, demography and population dynamics of clonal species.
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