The genomic basis of adaptive leaf variation in the Galápagos giant daisies
Vanessa C. Bieker, Siyu Li, José Cerca, Paul Battlay, Mohsen Falahati Anbaran, Amit Sharma, Patricia Jaramillo Díaz, Mario Fernández-Mazuecos, Jazmín Ramos-Madrigal, Sarah L. F. Martin, Luisa Santos-Bay, Gitte Petersen, Ole Seberg, Pablo Vargas, Rasmus Nielsen, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Gonzalo Rivas-To · 2026
Read The genomic basis of adaptive leaf variation in the Galápagos giant daisies by Vanessa C. Bieker, Siyu Li, José Cerca, Paul Battlay, Mohsen Falahati Anbaran, Amit Sharma, Patricia Jaramillo Díaz, Mario Fernández-Mazuecos, Jazmín Ramos-Madrigal, Sarah L. F. Martin, Luisa Santos-Bay, Gitte Petersen, Ole Seberg, Pablo Vargas, Rasmus Nielsen, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Gonzalo Rivas-To (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13273160.txt.
Description
Vanessa Bieker and co-authors read the genomes of the Galápagos giant daisies to learn how one young plant family split into so many forms. The group, Scalesia, covers all 15 known species in the islands and is famous for leaves that range from smooth to deeply lobed. The team sequenced 396 plants and paired the data with leaf measurements and gene activity across growth stages.
The radiation is only about a million years old, and most of the variety rests on shared inherited variation rather than new mutations. Lobed leaves evolved again and again under selection, each time through different regulators of the same leaf-pattern pathway. The authors also find strong hidden structure within species, which matters for protecting these threatened plants.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Vanessa C. Bieker, Siyu Li, José Cerca, Paul Battlay, Mohsen Falahati Anbaran, Amit Sharma, Patricia Jaramillo Díaz, Mario Fernández-Mazuecos, Jazmín Ramos-Madrigal, Sarah L. F. Martin, Luisa Santos-Bay, Gitte Petersen, Ole Seberg, Pablo Vargas, Rasmus Nielsen, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, Gonzalo Rivas-To |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 63 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |