THE SEED BANK AS A SOURCE OF GENETIC NOVELTY IN PLANTS

Seed banks may be an important source of genetic variation, if mutation rates in seeds aged in the field are as high as those of seeds aged in the laboratory. Laboratory-aged seeds often have genic and chromosomal mutation rates 2-3 orders of magnitude greater than those of 1-yr old seeds. Unusually high mutation rates in the seed bank would increase the evolutionary flexibility of populations and increase the likelihood of fixing a novel chromosomal arrangement. -from Author