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- Capsella (6)
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- Outcrossing rate (2)
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Background: The outcrossing rate is a key determinant of the population-genetic structure of species and their long-term evolutionary trajectories. However, determining the outcrossing rate using current methods based on PCRgenotyping individual offspring of focal plants for multiple polymorphic markers is laborious and time-consuming.
Results: We have developed an amplicon-based, high-throughput enabled method for estimating the outcrossing rate and have applied this to an example of scented versus non-scented Capsella (Shepherd’s Purse) genotypes. Our results show that the method is able to robustly capture differences in outcrossing rates. They also highlight potential biases in the estimates resulting from differential haplotype sharing of the focal plants with the pollen-donor population at individual amplicons.
Conclusions: This novel method for estimating outcrossing rates will allow determining this key population-genetic parameter with high-throughput across many genotypes in a population, enabling studies into the genetic determinants of successful pollinator attraction and outcrossing.
Background: The outcrossing rate is a key determinant of the population-genetic structure of species and their long-term evolutionary trajectories. However, determining the outcrossing rate using current methods based on PCRgenotyping individual offspring of focal plants for multiple polymorphic markers is laborious and time-consuming.
Results: We have developed an amplicon-based, high-throughput enabled method for estimating the outcrossing rate and have applied this to an example of scented versus non-scented Capsella (Shepherd’s Purse) genotypes. Our results show that the method is able to robustly capture differences in outcrossing rates. They also highlight potential biases in the estimates resulting from differential haplotype sharing of the focal plants with the pollen-donor population at individual amplicons.
Conclusions: This novel method for estimating outcrossing rates will allow determining this key population-genetic parameter with high-throughput across many genotypes in a population, enabling studies into the genetic determinants of successful pollinator attraction and outcrossing.
The transition from pollinator-mediated outbreeding to selfing has occurred many times in angiosperms. This is generally accompanied by a reduction in traits attracting pollinators, including reduced emission of floral scent. In Capsella, emission of benzaldehyde as a main component of floral scent has been lost in selfing C. rubella by mutation of cinnamate-CoA ligase CNL1. However, the biochemical basis and evolutionary history of this loss remain unknown, as does the reason for the absence of benzaldehyde emission in the independently derived selfer Capsella orientalis. We used plant transformation, in vitro enzyme assays, population genetics and quantitative genetics to address these questions. CNL1 has been inactivated twice independently by point mutations in C. rubella, causing a loss of enzymatic activity. Both inactive haplotypes are found within and outside of Greece, the centre of origin of C. rubella, indicating that they arose before its geographical spread. By contrast, the loss of benzaldehyde emission in C. orientalis is not due to an inactivating mutation in CNL1. CNL1 represents a hotspot for mutations that eliminate benzaldehyde emission, potentially reflecting the limited pleiotropy and large effect of its inactivation. Nevertheless, even closely related species have followed different evolutionary routes in reducing floral scent.
The primary function of leaves is to provide an interface between plants and their environment for gas exchange, light exposure and thermoregulation. Leaves have, therefore a central contribution to plant fitness by allowing an efficient absorption of sunlight energy through photosynthesis to ensure an optimal growth. Their final geometry will result from a balance between the need to maximize energy uptake while minimizing the damage caused by environmental stresses. This intimate relationship between leaf and its surroundings has led to an enormous diversification in leaf forms. Leaf shape varies between species, populations, individuals or even within identical genotypes when those are subjected to different environmental conditions. For instance, the extent of leaf margin dissection has, for long, been found to inversely correlate with the mean annual temperature, such that Paleobotanists have used models based on leaf shape to predict the paleoclimate from fossil flora. Leaf growth is not only dependent on temperature but is also regulated by many other environmental factors such as light quality and intensity or ambient humidity. This raises the question of how the different signals can be integrated at the molecular level and converted into clear developmental decisions. Several recent studies have started to shed the light on the molecular mechanisms that connect the environmental sensing with organ-growth and patterning. In this review, we discuss the current knowledge on the influence of different environmental signals on leaf size and shape, their integration as well as their importance for plant adaptation.
Gene duplication is a major driver for the increase of biological complexity. The divergence of newly duplicated paralogs may allow novel functions to evolve, while maintaining the ancestral one. Alternatively, partitioning the ancestral function among paralogs may allow parts of that role to follow independent evolutionary trajectories. We studied the REDUCED COMPLEXITY (RCO) locus, which contains three paralogs that have evolved through two independent events of gene duplication, and which underlies repeated events of leaf shape evolution within the Brassicaceae. In particular, we took advantage of the presence of three potentially functional paralogs in Capsella to investigate the extent of functional divergence among them. We demonstrate that the RCO copies control growth in different areas of the leaf. Consequently, the copies that are retained active in the different Brassicaceae lineages contribute to define the leaf dissection pattern. Our results further illustrate how successive gene duplication events and subsequent functional divergence can increase trait evolvability by providing independent evolutionary trajectories to specialized functions that have an additive effect on a given trait.
Flowers represent a key innovation during plant evolution. Driven by reproductive optimization, evolution of flower morphology has been central in boosting species diversification. In most cases, this has happened through specialized interactions with animal pollinators and subsequent reduction of gene flow between specialized morphs. While radiation has led to an enormous variability in flower forms and sizes, recurrent evolutionary patterns can be observed. Here, we discuss the targets of selection involved in major trends of pollinator-driven flower evolution. We review recent findings on their adaptive values, developmental grounds and genetic bases, in an attempt to better understand the repeated nature of pollinator-driven flower evolution. This analysis highlights how structural innovation can provide flexibility in phenotypic evolution, adaptation and speciation. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Capsella
(2018)
In angiosperms, the gynoecium is the last structure to develop within the flower due to the determinate fate of floral meristem (FM) stem cells. The maintenance of stem cell activity before its arrest at the stage called FM termination affects the number of carpels that develop. The necessary inhibition at this stage of WUSCHEL (WUS), which is responsible for stem cell maintenance, involves a two-step mechanism. Direct repression mediated by the MADS domain transcription factor AGAMOUS (AG), followed by indirect repression requiring the C2H2 zinc-finger protein KNUCKLES (KNU), allow for the complete termination of floral stem cell activity. Here, we show that Arabidopsis thaliana MINI ZINC FINGER2 (AtMIF2) and its homolog in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), INHIBITOR OF MERISTEM ACTIVITY (SlIMA), participate in the FM termination process by functioning as adaptor proteins. AtMIF2 and SlIMA recruit AtKNU and SlKNU, respectively, to form a transcriptional repressor complex together with TOPLESS and HISTONE DEACETYLASE19. AtMIF2 and SlIMA bind to the WUS and SIWUS loci in the respective plants, leading to their repression. These results provide important insights into the molecular mechanisms governing (FM) termination and highlight the essential role of AtMIF2/SlIMA during this developmental step, which determines carpel number and therefore fruit size.
Fruits exhibit a vast array of different 3D shapes, from simple spheres and cylinders to more complex curved forms; however, the mechanism by which growth is oriented and coordinated to generate this diversity of forms is unclear. Here, we compare the growth patterns and orientations for two very different fruit shapes in the Brassicaceae: the heart-shaped Capsella rubella silicle and the near-cylindrical Arabidopsis thaliana silique. We show, through a combination of clonal and morphological analyses, that the different shapes involve different patterns of anisotropic growth during three phases. These experimental data can be accounted for by a tissue level model in which specified growth rates vary in space and time and are oriented by a proximodistal polarity field. The resulting tissue conflicts lead to deformation of the tissue as it grows. The model allows us to identify tissue-specific and temporally specific activities required to obtain the individual shapes. One such activity may be provided by the valve-identity gene FRUITFULL, which we show through comparative mutant analysis to modulate fruit shape during post-fertilisation growth of both species. Simple modulations of the model presented here can also broadly account for the variety of shapes in other Brassicaceae species, thus providing a simplified framework for fruit development and shape diversity.
Heterostyly is a wide-spread floral adaptation to promote outbreeding, yet its genetic basis and evolutionary origin remain poorly understood. In Primula (primroses), heterostyly is controlled by the S-locus supergene that determines the reciprocal arrangement of reproductive organs and incompatibility between the two morphs. However, the identities of the component genes remain unknown. Here, we identify the Primula CYP734A50 gene, encoding a putative brassinosteroid-degrading enzyme, as the G locus that determines the style-length dimorphism. CYP734A50 is only present on the short-styled S-morph haplotype, it is specifically expressed in S-morph styles, and its loss or inactivation leads to long styles. The gene arose by a duplication specific to the Primulaceae lineage and shows an accelerated rate of molecular evolution. Thus, our results provide a mechanistic explanation for the Primula style-length dimorphism and begin to shed light on the evolution of the S-locus as a prime model for a complex plant supergene.