Determining the scale at which variation in a single gene changes population yields
- Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Germany
- National Institute of Plant Genome Research, India
- Instituto Potosino de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica A C, Mexico
- University of Zurich, Switzerland
Abstract
Plant trait diversity is known to influence population yield, but the scale at which this happens remains unknown: divergent individuals might change yields of immediate neighbors (neighbor scale) or of plants across a population (population scale). We use Nicotiana attenuata plants silenced in mitogen-activated protein kinase 4 (irMPK4) – with low water-use efficiency (WUE) – to study the scale at which water-use traits alter intraspecific population yields. In the field and glasshouse, we observed overyielding in populations with low percentages of irMPK4 plants, unrelated to water-use phenotypes. Paired-plant experiments excluded the occurrence of overyielding effects at the neighbor scale. Experimentally altering field arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal associations by silencing the Sym-pathway gene NaCCaMK did not affect reproductive overyielding, implicating an effect independent of belowground AMF interactions. Additionally, micro-grafting experiments revealed dependence on shoot-expressed MPK4 for N. attenuata to vary its yield per neighbor presence. We find that variation in a single-gene, MPK4, is responsible for population overyielding through a mechanism, independent of irMPK4's WUE phenotype, at the aboveground, population scale.
Data availability
The datasets used in the final fittings of our linear (LM), generlized least-squares (GLS), or linear mixed effects (LME/R) models, from which statistical significances were extracted, are included as "Source Data" files in our submission. Each Source Data file refers to the figure in which the corresponding data/results are displayed.
Article and author information
Author details
Meredith C Schuman
Funding
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
- Erica McGale
- Henrique Valim
- Deepika Mittal
- Jesús Morales Jimenez
- Rayko Halitschke
- Meredith C Schuman
- Ian T Baldwin
European Research Council (Advanced Grant 293926)
- Henrique Valim
- Meredith C Schuman
- Ian T Baldwin
iDiv
- Erica McGale
- Henrique Valim
- Meredith C Schuman
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Reviewing Editor
- Bernhard Schmid, University of Zurich, Switzerland
Version history
- Received: November 11, 2019
- Accepted: February 13, 2020
- Accepted Manuscript published: February 14, 2020 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: April 6, 2020 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2020, McGale 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
-
- 1,877
- views
-
- 264
- downloads
-
- 6
- 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)
Determining the scale at which variation in a single gene changes population yields
eLife 9:e53517.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.53517
Further reading
-
- Ecology
Over two decades ago, an intercropping strategy was developed that received critical acclaim for synergizing food security with ecosystem resilience in smallholder farming. The push–pull strategy reportedly suppresses lepidopteran pests in maize through a combination of a repellent intercrop (push), commonly Desmodium spp., and an attractive, border crop (pull). Key in the system is the intercrop’s constitutive release of volatile terpenoids that repel herbivores. However, the earlier described volatile terpenoids were not detectable in the headspace of Desmodium, and only minimally upon herbivory. This was independent of soil type, microbiome composition, and whether collections were made in the laboratory or in the field. Furthermore, in oviposition choice tests in a wind tunnel, maize with or without an odor background of Desmodium was equally attractive for the invasive pest Spodoptera frugiperda. In search of an alternative mechanism, we found that neonate larvae strongly preferred Desmodium over maize. However, their development stagnated and no larva survived. In addition, older larvae were frequently seen impaled and immobilized by the dense network of silica-fortified, non-glandular trichomes. Thus, our data suggest that Desmodium may act through intercepting and decimating dispersing larval offspring rather than adult deterrence. As a hallmark of sustainable pest control, maize–Desmodium push–pull intercropping has inspired countless efforts to emulate stimulo-deterrent diversion in other cropping systems. However, detailed knowledge of the actual mechanisms is required to rationally improve the strategy, and translate the concept to other cropping systems.
-
- Ecology
The bacterium responsible for a disease that infects citrus plants across Asia facilitates its own proliferation by increasing the fecundity of its host insect.
