Catherine M. Bush, assistant professor of biology at Elon, and colleagues published an analysis of low-copy nuclear genes in the current issue of the Nordic Journal of Botany.
The paper, entitled "Allopolyploidy in the Wintergreen Group of tribe Gaultherieae (Ericaceae) inferred from low-copy nuclear genes" shows that there are two copies each of the waxy (GBSSI) and leafy genes in the Wintergreen group and that the disparate placement of these two copies in the phylogeny indicates that hyridization occurred in earlier lineages within the group. Overall, this work supports the hypothesis that hybridization played an important part in the evolution of the Gaultherieae tribe.