Relationship Between Genome Size and Ploidy Level in Mulberry

In plant systems, the emergence of whole genome duplication (WGD) or polyploidy shows a magnitude of nuclear genomes plasticity, which played a central role in secession. Hence, understanding the genome size, ploidy level, and its functional relationship with plant performance is one of the most essential parts of plant biology. Morus is a genus comprising over ten species with > 1000 cultivated variants distributed throughout Asia, Europe, Africa, and the USA. Thus, Morus spp. is having wide adaptability with huge chromosomal number variation as n = 2x = 14 (haploid) to 2n = 22x = 308 (docosaploid). Based on morphological and DNA marker techniques, it is challenging to classify their ploidy level, and further chromosome study in Morus is difficult as the size variation of the chromosome. Moreover, to capitalize on the benefit of ploidy-associated traits through ploidy breeding, estimation of genome size, inter-specific ploidy level variation, and ploidy-associated traits have been discussed for future improvement in the mulberry crop.