Polyploid complex

The polyploid complex was first described by E. B. Babcock and G. Ledyard Stebbins in their 1938 monograph The American Species of Crepis: their interrelationships and distribution as affected by polyploidy and apomixis. In Crepis and some other herbaceous perennial species, a polyploid complex may arise where there are at least 2 genetically isolated diploid populations, in addition to auto- and allopolypoloid derivatives that coexist and interbreed (hybridise). Thus a complex network of interrelated forms may exist where the polyploid forms allow for genetic exchange between the diploid species that are otherwise unable to breed.

A polyploid complex has also been well described in Glycine.

This complex situation does not fit well within the biological species concept of Ernst Mayr which defines a species is defined as "groups of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations which are reproductively isolated from other such groups".

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