What Is Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium?

Unfavorable environmental conditions may induce flowering plants to reproduce by clonal growth more frequently than sexual reproduction, and such environmental conditions can be temporary or long lasting (HONNAY and BOSSUYT, 2005). A plant species can form remnant population when stages of the life-cycle persist over time due the failure to complete the whole life cycle (Eriksson 2000). These remnant populations may play an important ecological role for ecosystem resilience, due to positive interactions with other plants and animals (e.g. microbial community and pollinators) and decreasing nutrient variation in disturbed soil (Lavorel et al. 1997, Eriksson 2000).Despite the recognized ecological importance (JOHANSSON et al. 2011), little is
The mean number of alleles per locus across the species was 8.88 (range 1– 14) (Table 1), whereas the mean number of alleles observed per population (A), used to measure the genetic diversity, was 3.9 for ‘Big Sister’ and 1.84 for ‘Enfant Terrible’ (total range 1.714 - 4.875 ) (Table 2). The expected heterozygosity (He), in average, was higher than the mean observed heterozygosity (Ho) for ‘Big Sister’ populations, and Ho higher than He for ‘Enfant Terrible’ (Table 3). Departure from Hardy–Weinberg Equilibrium were significant at a 5% level (P<0.001) for only 3 populations (BANA, CAMP and ITAR). Based on the estimates of the inbreeding coefficient over all loci, the significant deviations were due to an excess of heterozygotes (negative GIS = more observed heterozygosity than expected) for BANA, CAMP and ITAR (Table 3). All other populations presented low, but not significant (positive GIS), heterozygosity (Table 3). According to the genetic distances based on the parameter ρ, populations coming from Southeast of São Paulo State and from Paraná formed a group in each of these regions, showing SALE-MOGI-BIRI and CAMP-ANTO more closely related, whereas BANA, CORU and ITAR as the most genetically distant populations (Table 4, Figure