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Role of seed germination in adaptation and reproductive isolation in Arabidopsis lyrata
Author(s) -
Hämälä Tuomas,
Mattila Tiina M.,
Lein Päivi H.,
Kuittinen Helmi,
Savolainen Outi
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
molecular ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.619
H-Index - 225
eISSN - 1365-294X
pISSN - 0962-1083
DOI - 10.1111/mec.14135
Subject(s) - biology , reproductive isolation , nonsynonymous substitution , quantitative trait locus , germination , seed dormancy , evolutionary biology , subspecies , arabidopsis , genetic variation , genetics , botany , population , dormancy , gene , ecology , genome , demography , sociology , mutant
Seed germination is an important developmental and life history stage. Yet, the evolutionary impact of germination has mainly been studied in the context of dormancy, or for its role in reproductive isolation between species. Here, we aim to examine multiple consequences of genetic divergence on germination traits between two Arabidopsis lyrata subspecies: ssp. petraea (Eurasia) and ssp. lyrata (North America). Postdormancy germination time, a potentially adaptive trait, showed differentiation between the populations, and quantitative trait loci ( QTL ) mapping revealed that the trait variation is mainly controlled by two antagonistic loci. These QTL areas contain several candidate genes with known function in postdormancy germination in A. thaliana . The sequence variation of three genes was consistent with differential selection, and they also included fixed nonsynonymous substitutions with potential to account for the phenotypic differentiation. We further show that the divergence between the subspecies has led to a slight but significant reduction in hybrid germination proportions, indicating incipient reproductive isolation. Comparison of reciprocal F 1 and F 2 progenies suggests that Bateson–Dobzhansky–Muller incompatibilities likely act through uniparentally inherited factors. Examination of genomewide transmission ratio distortion further revealed that cytonuclear interactions cause substantial pregermination inviability in the hybrids. These results confirm that seed germination has adaptive potential beyond the dormancy stage and that hybrid seed inviability can be one of the first reproductive barriers to arise during divergence.