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Xenia (also known as the Xenia effect) in plants is the effect of pollen on seeds and fruit of the fertilized plant. The effect is separate from the contribution of the pollen towards the next generation.
The term was coined in 1881 by the botanist
The vigour of the seeds forming inside a fruit can affect the growth of the fruit itself. For example, in two plant species whose fruit ripen asynchronously (''
Wilhelm Olbers Focke Wilhelm Olbers Focke (5 April 1834, Bremen – 29 September 1922, Bremen) was a medical doctor and botanist who in 1881 published a significant work on plant breeding entitled ''Die Pflanzen-Mischlinge, Ein Beitrag zur Biologie der Gewächse'' (T ...
to refer to effects on maternal tissues, including the seed coat and pericarp, but at that time endosperm was also thought to be a maternal tissue, and the term became closely associated with endosperm effects. The term metaxenia was later coined and is still sometimes used to describe the effects on purely maternal tissues.
Endosperm effects in the seed
One of the most familiar examples of xenia is the different colours that can be produced inmaize
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The ...
(''Zea mays'') by assortment of alleles via individual pollen grains. Such maize cobs are cultivated for decorative purposes.
The endosperm tissue, which makes up most of the bulk of a maize seed, is not produced by the mother plant, but is the product of fertilization, and genetic factors carried by the pollen affect its colour. For example, a yellow-seeded race may have its yellow colour determined by a recessive allele
In genetics, dominance is the phenomenon of one variant (allele) of a gene on a chromosome masking or overriding the effect of a different variant of the same gene on the other copy of the chromosome. The first variant is termed dominant and t ...
. If it receives pollen from a purple-seeded race that has one copy of a dominant allele for purple colour and one copy of the recessive allele for yellow seed, the resulting cob will have some yellow and some purple seeds.
Qualities affected in the endosperm of sorghum may include starchiness, sweetness, waxiness, or other aspects.
Fruit-growth effects
The vigour of the seeds forming inside a fruit can affect the growth of the fruit itself. For example, in two plant species whose fruit ripen asynchronously (''Vaccinium corymbosum
''Vaccinium corymbosum'', the northern highbush blueberry, is a North American species of blueberry which has become a food crop of significant economic importance. It is native to eastern Canada and the eastern and southern United States, from O ...
'' and ''Amelanchier arborea
''Amelanchier arborea'' (downy serviceberry or common serviceberry), is native to eastern North America from the Gulf Coast north to Thunder Bay in Ontario and Lake St. John in Quebec, and west to Texas and Minnesota.
Other common names are "sha ...
'') the fruit with more seeds ripened faster.
Xenia and genetically engineered crops
Because there is concern about pollen fromgenetically modified
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification or genetic manipulation, is the modification and manipulation of an organism's genes using technology. It is a set of technologies used to change the genetic makeup of cells, including ...
(GM) crops, male-sterile forms are being considered, particularly of maize. Male-fertile non-GM plants must then be grown with the GM crop to ensure pollination. In some cases, a xenia effect due to the genetic difference between the two strains has been observed that increases grain yield, and could make it financially viable to grow the male-sterile plants in such a mixture.
See also
*Maternal effect
A maternal effect is a situation where the phenotype of an organism is determined not only by the environment it experiences and its genotype, but also by the environment and genotype of its mother. In genetics, maternal effects occur when an org ...
* Extranuclear inheritance
Extranuclear inheritance or cytoplasmic inheritance is the transmission of genes that occur outside the nucleus. It is found in most eukaryotes and is commonly known to occur in cytoplasmic organelles such as mitochondria and chloroplasts or from c ...
* Plasmid
References
{{reflist Plant physiology