Open AccessQuantifying natural seasonal variation in mutation parameters with mutation accumulation lines
Author(s) -
Rutter Matthew T.,
Roles Angela J.,
Fenster Charles B.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
ecology and evolution
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.17
H-Index - 63
ISSN - 2045-7758
DOI - 10.1002/ece3.4085
Subject(s) - biology , mutation , mutation accumulation , genetic variation , phenotype , genetics , trait , natural selection , genotype , arabidopsis thaliana , evolutionary biology , mutation rate , gene , selection (genetic algorithm) , mutant , artificial intelligence , computer science , programming language
Mutations create novel genetic variants, but their contribution to variation in fitness and other phenotypes may depend on environmental conditions. Furthermore, natural environments may be highly heterogeneous. We assessed phenotypes associated with survival and reproductive success in over 30,000 plants representing 100 mutation accumulation lines of Arabidopsis thaliana across four temporal environments at a single field site. In each of the four assays, environmental variance was substantially larger than mutational variance. For some traits, whether mutational variance was significantly varied between seasons. The founder genotype had mean trait values near the mean of the distribution of the mutation accumulation lines in all field experiments. New mutations also contributed more phenotypic variation than would be predicted, given phenotypic and sequence‐level divergence among natural populations of A. thaliana . The combination of large environmental variance with a mean effect of mutation near zero suggests that mutations could contribute substantially to standing genetic variation.