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Abstract Chilling stress threatens plant growth and development, particularly affecting membrane fluidity and cellular integrity. Understanding plant membrane responses to chilling stress is important for unraveling the molecular mechanisms of stress tolerance. Whereas core transcriptional responses to chilling stress and stress tolerance are conserved across species, the associated changes in membrane lipids appear to be less conserved, as which lipids are affected by chilling stress varies by species. Here, we investigated changes in gene expression and membrane lipids in response to chilling stress during one 24 h cycle in chilling-tolerant foxtail millet (Setaria italica), and chilling-sensitive sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) and Urochloa (browntop signal grass, Urochloa fusca, lipids only), leveraging their evolutionary relatedness and differing levels of chilling stress tolerance. We show that most chilling-induced lipid changes are conserved across the three species, while we observed distinct, time-specific responses in chilling-tolerant foxtail millet, indicating the presence of a finely orchestrated adaptive mechanism. We detected rhythmicity in lipid responses to chilling stress in the three grasses, which were also present in Arabidopsis thaliana, suggesting the conservation of rhythmic patterns across species and highlighting the importance of accounting for time of day. When integrating lipid datasets with gene expression profiles, we identified potential candidate genes that showed corresponding transcriptional changes in response to chilling stress, providing insights into the differences in regulatory mechanisms between chilling-sensitive sorghum and chilling-tolerant foxtail millet. 

ABSTRACT Chromosomal inversion polymorphisms are ubiquitous across the diversity of diploid organisms and play a significant role in the evolution of adaptations in those species. Inversions are thought to operate as supergenes by trapping adaptive alleles at multiple linked loci through the suppression of recombination. While there is now considerable support for the supergene mechanism of inversion evolution, the extent to which inversions trap pre‐existing adaptive genetic variation versus accumulate new adaptive variants over time remains unclear. In this study, we report new insights into the evolution of a locally adaptive chromosomal inversion polymorphism (inv_chr8A), which contributes to the adaptive divergence between coastal perennial and inland annual ecotypes of the yellow monkeyflower,Mimulus guttatus. This research was enabled by the sequencing, assembly and annotation of new annual and perennial genomes ofM. guttatususing Oxford Nanopore long‐read sequencing technology. In addition to the adaptive inv_chr8A inversion, we identified three other large inversion polymorphisms, including a previously unknown large inversion (inv_chr8B) nested within inv_chr8A. Through population genomic analyses, we determined that the nested inv_chr8B inversion is significantly older than the larger chromosomal inversion in which it resides. We also evaluated the potential role of key candidate genes underlying the phenotypic effects of inv_chr8A. These genes are involved in gibberellin biosynthesis and anthocyanin regulation. Although little evidence was found to suggest that inversion breakpoint mutations drive adaptive phenotypic effects, our findings do support the supergene mechanism of adaptation and suggest it may sometimes involve nested inversions that evolve at different times. 

PremiseLeaf morphology is dynamic, continuously deforming during leaf expansion and among leaves within a shoot. Here, we measured the leaf morphology of more than 200 grapevines (Vitisspp.) over four years and modeled changes in leaf shape along the shoot to determine whether a composite leaf shape comprising all the leaves from a single shoot can better capture the variation and predict species identity compared with individual leaves. MethodsUsing homologous universal landmarks found in grapevine leaves, we modeled various morphological features as polynomial functions of leaf nodes. The resulting functions were used to reconstruct modeled leaf shapes across the shoots, generating composite leaves that comprehensively capture the spectrum of leaf morphologies present. ResultsWe found that composite leaves are better predictors of species identity than individual leaves from the same plant. We were able to use composite leaves to predict the species identity of previously unassigned grapevines, which were verified with genotyping. DiscussionObservations of individual leaf shape fail to capture the true diversity between species. Composite leaf shape—an assemblage of modeled leaf snapshots across the shoot—is a better representation of the dynamic and essential shapes of leaves, in addition to serving as a better predictor of species identity than individual leaves.