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Flowers are an important part of how many plants reproduce. Their distinctive colours, shapes and patterns attract specific pollinators, but they can also help to protect the plant from predators and environmental stresses. Many flowers contain pigments that absorb ultraviolet (UV) light to display distinct UV patterns – although invisible to the human eye, most pollinators are able to see them. For example, when seen in UV, sunflowers feature a ‘bullseye’ with a dark centre surrounded by a reflective outer ring. The sizes and thicknesses of these rings vary a lot within and between flower species, and so far, it has been unclear what causes this variation and how it affects the plants. To find out more, Todesco et al. studied the UV patterns in various wild sunflowers across North America by considering the ecology and molecular biology of different plants. This revealed great variation between the UV patterns of the different sunflower populations. Moreover, Todesco et al. found that a gene called HaMYB111 is responsible for the diverse UV patterns in the sunflowers. This gene controls how plants make chemicals called flavonols that absorb UV light. Flavonols also help to protect plants from damage caused by droughts and extreme temperatures. Todesco et al. showed that plants with larger bullseyes had more flavonols, attracted more pollinators, and were better at conserving water. Accordingly, these plants were found in drier locations. This study suggests that, at least in sunflowers, UV patterns help both to attract pollinators and to control water loss. These insights could help to improve pollination – and consequently yield – in cultivated plants, and to develop plants with better resistance to extreme weather. This work also highlights the importance of combining biology on small and large scales to understand complex processes, such as adaptation and evolution. 

Invasive species represent excellent opportunities to study the evolutionary potential of traits important to success in novel environments. Although some ecologically important traits have been identified in invasive species, little is typically known about the genetic mechanisms that underlie invasion success in non-model species. Here, we use a genome-wide association (GWAS) approach to identify the genetic basis of trait variation in the non-model, invasive, diffuse knapweed [ Centaurea diffusa Lam. (Asteraceae)]. To assist with this analysis, we have assembled the first draft genome reference and fully annotated plastome assembly for this species, and one of the first from this large, weedy, genus, which is of major ecological and economic importance. We collected phenotype data from 372 individuals from four native and four invasive populations of C. diffusa grown in a common environment. Using these individuals, we produced reduced-representation genotype-by-sequencing (GBS) libraries and identified 7,058 SNPs. We identify two SNPs associated with leaf width in these populations, a trait which significantly varies between native and invasive populations. In this rosette forming species, increased leaf width is a major component of increased biomass, a common trait in invasive plants correlated with increased fitness. Finally, we use annotations from Arabidopsis thaliana to identify 98 candidate genes that are near the associated SNPs and highlight several good candidates for leaf width variation. 

Conspecific populations living in adjacent but contrasting microenvironments represent excellent systems for studying natural selection. These systems are valuable because gene flow is expected to force genetic homogeneity except at loci experiencing divergent selection. A history of reciprocal transplant and common garden studies in such systems, and a growing number of genomic studies, have contributed to understanding how selection operates in natural populations. While selection can vary across different fitness components and life stages, few studies have investigated how this ultimately affects allele frequencies and the maintenance of divergence between populations. Here, we study two sunflower ecotypes in distinct, adjacent habitats by combining demographic models with genome‐wide sequence data to estimate fitness and allele frequency change at multiple life stages. This framework allows us to estimate that only local ecotypes are likely to experience positive population growth (λ > 1) and that the maintenance of divergent adaptation appears to be mediated via habitat‐ and life stage‐specific selection. We identify genetic variation, significantly driven by loci in chromosomal inversions, associated with different life history strategies in neighbouring ecotypes that optimize different fitness components and may contribute to the maintenance of distinct ecotypes.

 

Hybridization is a common phenomenon, yet its evolutionary outcomes remain debated. Here, we ask whether hybridization can speed adaptive evolution using resynthesized hybrids between two species of Texas sunflowers (Helianthus annuusandH. debilis) that form a natural hybrid in the wild (H. annuusssp.texanus). We established separate control and hybrid populations and allowed them to evolve naturally in a field evolutionary experiment. In a final common-garden, we measured fitness and a suite of key traits for these lineages. We show that hybrid fitness evolved in just seven generations, with fitness of the hybrid lines exceeding that of the controls by 14% and 51% by the end of the experiment, though only the latter represents a significant increase. More traits evolved significantly in hybrids relative to controls, and hybrid evolution was faster for most traits. Some traits in both hybrid and control lineages evolved in an adaptive manner consistent with the direction of phenotypic selection. These findings show a causal pathway from hybridization to rapid adaptation and suggest an explanation for the frequently noted association between hybridization and adaptive radiation, range expansion, and invasion.

 

The origins of geographic races in wide‐ranging species are poorly understood. In Texas, thetexanussubspecies ofHelianthusannuushas long been thought to have acquired its defining phenotypic traits via introgression from a local congener,H. debilis, but previous tests of this hypothesis were inconclusive. Here, we explore the origins ofH. a. texanususing whole genome sequencing data from across the entire range ofH. annuusand possible donor species, as well as phenotypic data from a common garden study. We found that although it is morphologically convergent withH. debilis,H. a. texanushas conflicting signals of introgression. Genome wide tests (Patterson'sDandTreeMix) only found evidence of introgression fromH. argophyllus(sister species toH. annuusand also sympatric), but notH. debilis, with the exception of one individual of 109 analysed. We further scanned the genome for localized signals of introgression usingPCAdmixand found minimal but nonzero introgression fromH. debilisand significant introgression fromH. argophyllusin some populations. Given the paucity of introgression fromH. debilis, we argue that the morphological convergence observed in Texas is probably from standing genetic variation. We also found that genomic differentiation inH. a. texanusis mostly driven by large segregating inversions, several of which have signatures of natural selection based on haplotype frequencies.

 

Hybridization among diverging lineages is common in nature. Genomic data provide a special opportunity to characterize the history of hybridization and the genetic basis of speciation. We review existing methods and empirical studies to identify recent advances in the genomics of hybridization, as well as issues that need to be addressed. Notable progress has been made in the development of methods for detecting hybridization and inferring individual ancestries. However, few approaches reconstruct the magnitude and timing of gene flow, estimate the fitness of hybrids or incorporate knowledge of recombination rate. Empirical studies indicate that the genomic consequences of hybridization are complex, including a highly heterogeneous landscape of differentiation. Inferred characteristics of hybridization differ substantially among species groups. Loci showing unusual patterns – which may contribute to reproductive barriers – are usually scattered throughout the genome, with potential enrichment in sex chromosomes and regions of reduced recombination. We caution against the growing trend of interpreting genomic variation in summary statistics across genomes as evidence of differential gene flow. We argue that converting genomic patterns into useful inferences about hybridization will ultimately require models and methods that directly incorporate key ingredients of speciation, including the dynamic nature of gene flow, selection acting in hybrid populations and recombination rate variation.

 

Phenotypic differentiation in size and fecundity between native and invasive populations of a species has been suggested as a causal driver of invasion in plants. Local adaptation to novel environmental conditions through a micro‐evolutionary response to natural selection may lead to phenotypic differentiation and fitness advantages in the invaded range. Local adaptation may occur along a stress tolerance trade‐off, favoring individuals that, in benign conditions, shift resource allocation from stress tolerance to increased vigor and fecundity and, therefore, invasiveness. Alternately, the typically disturbed invaded range may select for a plastic, generalist strategy, making phenotypic plasticity the main driver of invasion success. To distinguish between these hypotheses, we performed a field common garden and tested for genetically based phenotypic differentiation, resource allocation shifts in response to water limitation, and local adaptation to the environmental gradient which describes the source locations for native and invasive populations of diffuse knapweed (Centaurea diffusa). Plants were grown in an experimental field in France (naturalized range) under water addition and limitation conditions. After accounting for phenotypic variation arising from environmental differences among collection locations, we found evidence of genetic variation between the invasive and native populations for most morphological and life‐history traits under study. InvasiveC. diffusapopulations produced larger, later maturing, and therefore potentially fitter individuals than native populations. Evidence for local adaptation along a resource allocation trade‐off for water limitation tolerance is equivocal. However, native populations do show evidence of local adaptation to an environmental gradient, a relationship which is typically not observed in the invaded range. Broader analysis of the climatic niche inhabited by the species in both ranges suggests that the physiological tolerances ofC. diffusamay have expanded in the invaded range. This observation could be due to selection for plastic, “general‐purpose” genotypes with broad environmental tolerances.