The Seed Bank as a Source of Genetic Novelty in Plants

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Abstract
Populations of many annual species have seed banks that reduce the between-year variation in population size, thereby reducing the risk of population extinction. Seed banks may buffer populations against change in genetic composition resulting from genetic drift or selection. In this paper, I propose that 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 two to three orders of magnitude greater than those of one-year-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.