CYTOGENETICS OF ELYMUS-CAUCASICUS AND ELYMUS-LONGEARISTATUS (POACEAE, TRITICEAE)

Two accessions of Elymus caucasicus (Koch) Tzvelev and three accessions of Elymus longearistatus (Boiss.) Tzvelev were studied to determine the meiotic behavior and chromosome pairing in the two taxa, their interspecific hybrid, and their hybrids with various "analyzer" parents. Interspecific and intergeneric hybrids of the target taxa were obtained with the following analyzer species: Pseudoroegneria spicata (Pursh) A. Love (2n = 14, SS), Pseudoroegneria libanotica (Hackel) D. R. Dewey (2n = 14, SS), Hordeum violaceum Boiss. & Hohenacker (2n = 14, HH) (= Critesion violaceum (Boiss. & Hohenacker) A. Love), Elymus lanceolatus (Scribn. & Smith) Gould (2n = 28, SSHH), Elymus abolinii (Drob.) Tzvelev (2n = 28, SSYY), Elymus pendulinus (Nevski) Tzvelev (2n = 28, SSYY), Elymus fedtschenkoi Tzvelev (2n = 28, SSYY), Elymus panormitanus (Parl.) Tzvelev (2n = 28, SSYY), and Elymus drobovii (Nevski) Tzvelev (2n = 42, SSHHYY). Cytological analysis of their F1 hybrids showed that E. caucasicus and E. longearistatus were allotetraploids comprising the same basic genomes. Chromosome pairing in the E. caucasicus x P. libanotica hybrid demonstrated that the target taxa contained the S genome, based on 6.1 bivalents per cell. The lack of chromosome pairing, less than one bivalent per cell, in the E. longearistatus x H. violaceum hybrid showed that the H genome was absent. Increased pairing in the tetraploid and pentaploid hybrids when the Y genome was introduced indicated that the second genome in the two taxa was a segmental homolog of the Y genome. The S and Y genomes in E. caucasicus and E. longearistatus have diverged from each other and from those in many of the eastern and central Asian SY tetraploids.