Date of Award
9-26-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Biology, MS
First Advisor
Travis Marsico
Committee Members
Emily Bellis; Kyle Gustafson; Rima Lucardi; Scott Mangan
Abstract
Saccharum spontaneum L., wild sugarcane, is an aggressive invasive species, listed by the USDA as a Federal Noxious Weed (FNW). Despite this, S. spontaneum is used to create hardy, pest-resistant cultivars of domestic sugarcane. All cultivars have a small percentage of wild parentage, but the dosage is low to lessen the chance of inheriting undesirable traits. Saccharum spontaneum’s naturalized presence in Florida has been reported since 1993 and likely escaped from regulated sugarcane breeding facilities. The proximity of S. spontaneum populations to modern cultivars, grown intensively in the state, could potentially increase the risk of invasion. It is imperative to delineate the relationships between potentially interbreeding populations and to determine the overall risk of Saccharum spp. invasion. From seventeen individual genome sequences, I produced biallelic SNPs to perform genetic analyses. I also designed and executed a greenhouse experiment to explore the relationship between Saccharum and Floridian habitats
Rights Management
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Hughes, Indy, "A Multifaceted Analysis of the Genetic Origins, Growth, And Invasive Potential of Introduced Floridian Sugarcane" (2025). Student Theses and Dissertations. 1087.
https://arch.astate.edu/all-etd/1087
