Data from: Somatic deleterious mutation rate in a woody plant: estimation from phenotypic data

We conducted controlled crosses in populations of the long-lived clonal
shrub, Vaccinium angustifolium (lowbush blueberry) to estimate inbreeding
depression and mutation parameters associated with somatic deleterious
mutation. Inbreeding depression level was high, with many plants failing
to set fruit after self-pollination. We also compared fruit set from
autogamous pollinations (pollen collected from within the same
inflorescence) to fruit set from geitonogamous pollinations (pollen
collected from the same plant but from inflorescences separated by several
meters of branch growth). The difference between geitonogamous versus
autogamous fitness within single plants is referred to as "autogamy
depression" (AD). AD can be caused by somatic deleterious mutation.
AD was significantly different from zero for fruit set. We developed a
maximum likelihood procedure to estimate somatic mutation parameters from
AD, and applied it to geitonogamous and autogamous fruit set data from
this experiment. We infer that on average, approximately three sublethal,
partially dominant somatic mutations exist within the crowns of the plants
studied. We conclude that somatic mutation in this woody plant results in
an overall genomic deleterious mutation rate that exceeds that measured to
date for annual plants. Some implications of this result for evolutionary
biology and agriculture are discussed.