Genome size variation in the genus Avena

Abstract

Genome size is an indicator of evolutionary distance and a metric for genome characterization. Here, we report accurate estimates of genome size in 99 accessions from 26 species of Avena. We demonstrate that the average genome size of C genome diploid species (2C=10.26 pg) is 15% larger than that of A genome species (2C=8.95 pg) and that this difference likely accounts for a progression of size among tetraploid species, where AB