Open AccessThe maternal environment interacts with genetic variation in regulating seed dormancy in Swedish Arabidopsis thaliana
Author(s) -
Envel Kerdaffrec,
Magnus Nordborg
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0190242
Subject(s) - biology , dormancy , arabidopsis thaliana , seed dormancy , trait , arabidopsis , germination , population , phenotypic plasticity , quantitative trait locus , genetic variation , evolutionary biology , botany , genetics , gene , demography , sociology , computer science , mutant , programming language
Seed dormancy is a complex adaptive trait that controls the timing of seed germination, one of the major fitness components in many plant species. Despite being highly heritable, seed dormancy is extremely plastic and influenced by a wide range of environmental cues. Here, using a set of 92 Arabidopsis thaliana lines from Sweden, we investigate the effect of seed maturation temperature on dormancy variation at the population level. The response to temperature differs dramatically between lines, demonstrating that genotype and the maternal environment interact in controlling the trait. By performing a genome-wide association study (GWAS), we identified several candidate genes that could presumably account for this plasticity, two of which are involved in the photoinduction of germination. Altogether, our results provide insight into both the molecular mechanisms and the evolution of dormancy plasticity, and can serve to improve our understanding of environmentally dependent life-history transitions.