Our findings offer valuable insights into how environmental conditions and ploidy levels interact to shape ecological relationships and cytotype distributions, enhancing our understanding of the long-term establishment and persistence of polyploids.

💡 Result 2: Why does this happen?
Competitive outcomes were driven by functional traits 🌿 :
• SLA (growth strategy) contributes to competitive effects
• AN, Fv/Fm, iWUE (photosynthesis & water-use efficiency) are involve in competition tolerance

💡 Result 1: Water availability shifts the balance.
• Under high water: lower ploidy levels (2x and 4x) outcompeted higher ploidy cytotypes
• Under drought: 6x and 12x gain the competitive edge
👉 Overall, we predict competitive exclusion, with coexistence only in 4x–12x (control) and 2x–4x (drought)

To test this, we ran a greenhouse competition experiment with 4 cytotypes of the wild carnation Dianthus broteri (2x, 4x, 6x, 12x) under two contrasting watering regimes 💧/🚫💧

Polyploidy is an important mechanism in plant evolution. However, even within those polyploid plant species that become established initially, only a few persist in the long term. One possible explanation for this is the competition between polyploids and their parentals in secondary contact zones