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Creators/Authors contains: "Anderson, Kayli"

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  1. Premise

    Across taxa, vegetative and floral traits that vary along a fast‐slow life‐history axis are often correlated with leaf functional traits arrayed along the leaf economics spectrum, suggesting a constrained set of adaptive trait combinations. Such broad‐scale convergence may arise from genetic constraints imposed by pleiotropy (or tight linkage) within species, or from natural selection alone. Understanding the genetic basis of trait syndromes and their components is key to distinguishing these alternatives and predicting evolution in novel environments.

    Methods

    We used a line‐cross approach and quantitative trait locus (QTL) mapping to characterize the genetic basis of twenty leaf functional/physiological, life history, and floral traits in hybrids between annualized and perennial populations of scarlet monkeyflower (Mimulus cardinalis).

    Results

    We mapped both single and multi‐trait QTLs for life history, leaf function and reproductive traits, but found no evidence of genetic co‐ordination across categories. A major QTL for three leaf functional traits (thickness, photosynthetic rate, and stomatal resistance) suggests that a simple shift in leaf anatomy may be key to adaptation to seasonally dry habitats.

    Conclusions

    Our results suggest that the co‐ordination of resource‐acquisitive leaf physiological traits with a fast life‐history and more selfing mating system results from environmental selection rather than functional or genetic constraint. Independent assortment of distinct trait modules, as well as a simple genetic basis to leaf physiological traits associated with drought escape, may facilitate adaptation to changing climates.

     
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  2. Abstract

    Copy number variation (CNV) is a major part of the genetic diversity segregating within populations, but remains poorly understood relative to single nucleotide variation. Here, we report on atRNAligase gene (Migut.N02091;RLG1a) exhibiting unprecedented, and fitness‐relevant,CNVwithin an annual population of the yellow monkeyflowerMimulus guttatus.RLG1a variation was associated with multiple traits in pooled population sequencing (PoolSeq) scans of phenotypic and phenological cohorts. Resequencing of inbred lines revealed intermediate‐frequency three‐copy variants ofRLG1a (trip+;5/35 = 14%), andtrip+lines exhibited elevatedRLG1a expression under multiple conditions.trip+carriers, in addition to being over‐represented in late‐flowering and large‐flowered PoolSeq populations, flowered later under stressful conditions in a greenhouse experiment (p < 0.05). In wild population samples, we discovered an additional rareRLG1a variant (high+) that carries 250–300 copies ofRLG1a totalling ~5.7 Mb (20–40% of a chromosome). In the progeny of ahigh+carrier, Mendelian segregation of diagnostic alleles andqPCR‐based copy counts indicate thathigh+is a single tandem array unlinked to the single‐copyRLG1a locus. In the wild,high+carriers had highest fitness in two particularly dry and/or hot years (2015 and 2017; bothp < 0.01), while single‐copy individuals were twice as fecund as eitherCNVtype in a lush year (2016:p < 0.005). Our results demonstrate fluctuating selection onCNVs affecting phenological traits in a wild population, suggest that planttRNAligases mediate stress‐responsive life‐history traits, and introduce a novel system for investigating the molecular mechanisms of gene amplification.

     
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