Natural Variation and the Genetic Basis of Altitudinal
Natural Variation and the Genetic Basis of Altitudinal Adaptation in Arabidopsis thaliana Yonghai Luo ETH Zurich, Plant Ecological Genetics, Institute of Integrative Biology (IBZ) Universitätstrasse 16, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland
Global climate change and local adaptation
Factors affecting plant growth Internal Factors /Genetic Factors Light (Quality, Intensity, Duration, etc. ) Temperature External Factors /Environmental Factors Moisture Atmosphere (CO 2, etc) Nutrition. . . It is significant to uncover the interactions between genetic and environmental factors in order to understand the genetic basis of adaptation.
Why Arabidopsis thaliana? � Little is known about the genetic basis of altitudinal adaptation in plants to date � Much is known about plant molecular biology from studies on A. thaliana � A. thaliana Populations are found from high-altitude locations
Project Goals: 1. To characterize genetic and phenotypic differentiation between highaltitude and low-altitude populations of Arabidopsis thaliana 2. To investigate the genetic basis underlying altitudinal adaptation.
Experimental Approaches: Neutral loci vs phenotypic divergence Genome-wide sequence/expression variation Genetics/ Genomics/ Mol. Biol. Natural variation in candidate genes and pathways Manipulative environmental experiments Forward genetic experiments
16 populations from various sites and altitudes were collected in the Swiss Alps
Genotyping of presumably neutral SSR loci
F-statistics calculation ----------------------------Locus Fwc(is) Fwc(st) Fwc(it) ------------------M 01 0. 5590 0. 6685 0. 8538 M 02 0. 9331 0. 8437 0. 9895 M 03 0. 9998 0. 8158 1. 0000 M 04 0. 9861 0. 6821 0. 9956 M 05 0. 9864 0. 6031 0. 9946 M 06 0. 9999 0. 7219 1. 0000 M 07 0. 9688 0. 6031 0. 9876 M 08 0. 8667 0. 7580 0. 9678 M 09 0. 9472 0. 6893 0. 9836 M 10 0. 9633 0. 7770 0. 9918 ------------------All: 0. 9275 0. 7211 0. 9798 ---------------------------- Stenoien HK et al. , 2005: Le Corre V, 2005: 0. 88 0. 595
Next steps Ø To finish Fst analysis (including neutral- and non-neutral loci) Ø To carry out Qst estimation Ø To identify loci for further analysis
Acknowledgements All colleagues in the group of Plant Ecological Genetics! Thanks to all of you!
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