Multiple alleles at a single locus control seed dormancy in Swedish Arabidopsis
- Vienna Biocenter, Austria
Abstract
Seed dormancy is a complex life history trait that determines the timing of germination and is crucial for local adaptation. Genetic studies of dormancy are challenging, because the trait is highly plastic and strongly influenced by the maternal environment. Using a combination of statistical and experimental approaches, we show that multiple alleles at the previously identified dormancy locus DELAY OF GERMINATION1 jointly explain as much as 57% of the variation observed in Swedish Arabidopsis thaliana, but give rise to spurious associations that seriously mislead genome-wide association studies unless modeled correctly. Field experiments confirm that the major alleles affect germination as well as survival under natural conditions, and demonstrate that locally adaptive traits can sometimes be dissected genetically.
Data availability
-
Low coverage sequencing of three A. thaliana F2 populations for QTL mappingPublicly available at the NCBI BioProject (accession no: PRJNA343766).
-
Low coverage sequencing of A. thaliana samples from Swedish field experimentsPublicly available at the NCBI BioProject (accession no: PRJNA343768).
-
Massive genomic variation and strong selection in Arabidopsis thaliana lines from SwedenPublicly available at Github (https://github.com).
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
European Research Council (268962 (MAXMAP))
- Magnus Nordborg
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Christian S Hardtke, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
Version history
- Received: October 19, 2016
- Accepted: December 13, 2016
- Accepted Manuscript published: December 14, 2016 (version 1)
- Accepted Manuscript updated: December 16, 2016 (version 2)
- Version of Record published: January 11, 2017 (version 3)
Copyright
© 2016, Kerdaffrec et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 4,924
- views
-
- 783
- downloads
-
- 54
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Multiple alleles at a single locus control seed dormancy in Swedish Arabidopsis
eLife 5:e22502.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.22502
Further reading
-
- Plant Biology
Microbes strongly affect invasive plant growth. However, how phyllosphere and rhizosphere soil microbes distinctively affect seedling mortality and growth of invaders across ontogeny under varying soil nutrient levels remains unclear. In this study, we used the invader Ageratina adenophora to evaluate these effects. We found that higher proportions of potential pathogens were detected in core microbial taxa in leaf litter than rhizosphere soil and thus leaf inoculation had more adverse effects on seed germination and seedling survival than soil inoculation. Microbial inoculation at different growth stages altered the microbial community and functions of seedlings, and earlier inoculation had a more adverse effect on seedling survival and growth. The soil nutrient level did not affect microbe-mediated seedling growth and the relative abundance of the microbial community and functions involved in seedling growth. The effects of some microbial genera on seedling survival are distinct from those on growth. Moreover, the A. adenophora seedling-killing effects of fungal strains isolated from dead seedlings by non-sterile leaf inoculation exhibited significant phylogenetic signals, by which strains of Allophoma and Alternaria generally caused high seedling mortality. Our study stresses the essential role of A. adenophora litter microbes in population establishment by regulating seedling density and growth.
-
- Plant Biology
The abscission of floral organs and emergence of lateral roots in Arabidopsis is regulated by the peptide ligand inflorescence deficient in abscission (IDA) and the receptor protein kinases HAESA (HAE) and HAESA-like 2 (HSL2). During these cell separation processes, the plant induces defense-associated genes to protect against pathogen invasion. However, the molecular coordination between abscission and immunity has not been thoroughly explored. Here, we show that IDA induces a release of cytosolic calcium ions (Ca2+) and apoplastic production of reactive oxygen species, which are signatures of early defense responses. In addition, we find that IDA promotes late defense responses by the transcriptional upregulation of genes known to be involved in immunity. When comparing the IDA induced early immune responses to known immune responses, such as those elicited by flagellin22 treatment, we observe both similarities and differences. We propose a molecular mechanism by which IDA promotes signatures of an immune response in cells destined for separation to guard them from pathogen attack.
