Epigenetics of drought-induced trans-generational plasticity: consequences for range limit development

Alsdurf, Jacob; Anderson, Cynthia M.; Siemens, David H.

doi:10.1093/aobpla/plv146

Cited by 21 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…These adaptive phenotypes may be expressed constitutively or may be induced by an environmental cue that predicts a change in water availability later in the life of the organism. Increasingly, experimental studies show that the parental soil moisture regime can also adaptively influence the development of progeny (Alsdurf, Anderson, & Siemens, ; Alsdurf, Ripley, Matzner, & Siemens, ), providing a third route by which plants can fine tune the phenotypes of their offspring to local soil moisture levels. For instance, in Massachusetts genotypes of the annual plant Polygonum persicaria , offspring of drought‐stressed parents make more extensive root systems and deploy them faster in response to drought as compared to offspring of well‐watered parents.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical patterns of environmental variation favor adaptive transgenerational plasticity

Colicchio

Herman

2020

Ecology and Evolution

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Effects of parental environment on offspring traits have been well known for decades. Interest in this transgenerational form of phenotypic plasticity has recently surged due to advances in our understanding of its mechanistic basis. Theoretical research has simultaneously advanced by predicting the environmental conditions that should favor the adaptive evolution of transgenerational plasticity. Yet whether such conditions actually exist in nature remains largely unexplored. Here, using long‐term climate data, we modeled optimal levels of transgenerational plasticity for an organism with a one‐year life cycle at a spatial resolution of 4 km2 across the continental United States. Both annual temperature and precipitation levels were often autocorrelated, but the strength and direction of these autocorrelations varied considerably even among nearby sites. When present, such environmental autocorrelations render offspring environments statistically predictable based on the parental environment, a key condition for the adaptive evolution of transgenerational plasticity. Results of our optimality models were consistent with this prediction: High levels of transgenerational plasticity were favored at sites with strong environmental autocorrelations, and little‐to‐no transgenerational plasticity was favored at sites with weak or nonexistent autocorrelations. These results are among the first to show that natural patterns of environmental variation favor the evolution of adaptive transgenerational plasticity. Furthermore, these findings suggest that transgenerational plasticity is likely variable in nature, depending on site‐specific patterns of environmental variation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical patterns of environmental variation favor adaptive transgenerational plasticity

Colicchio

Herman

2020

Ecology and Evolution

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“…In a study of the perennial plant Boechera stricta, Alsdurf & colleagues [33] found that parental drought caused changes in DNA methylation that correlated with increased drought-tolerance in offspring. These transgenerational changes also correlated with decreased production of defensive chemicals in offspring, thus implicating epigenetic inheritance in an ecologically meaningful trade-off between offspring tolerances to different stresses.…”

Section: Discussion (A) Dna Methylation Mediates Adaptive Transgeneramentioning

confidence: 99%

DNA methylation mediates genetic variation for adaptive transgenerational plasticity

2016

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Environmental stresses experienced by individual parents can influence offspring phenotypes in ways that enhance survival under similar conditions. Although such adaptive transgenerational plasticity is well documented, its transmission mechanisms are generally unknown. One possible mechanism is environmentally induced DNA methylation changes. We tested this hypothesis in the annual plant Polygonum persicaria, a species known to express adaptive transgenerational plasticity in response to parental drought stress. Replicate plants of 12 genetic lines (sampled from natural populations) were grown in dry versus moist soil. Their offspring were exposed to the demethylating agent zebularine or to control conditions during germination and then grown in dry soil. Under control germination conditions, the offspring of drought-stressed parents grew longer root systems and attained greater biomass compared with offspring of well-watered parents of the same genetic lines. Demethylation removed these adaptive developmental effects of parental drought, but did not significantly alter phenotypic expression in offspring of well-watered parents. The effect of demethylation on the expression of the parental drought effect varied among genetic lines. Differential seed provisioning did not contribute to the effect of parental drought on offspring phenotypes. These results demonstrate that DNA methylation can mediate adaptive, genotype-specific effects of parental stress on offspring phenotypes.

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“…Likewise, together with the biological variability in the methylation level of the samples, it must be taken into account that although the MSAP technique is quite reproducible, there may be technical errors that cause a fragment to be absent or present [ 118 ]. In this sense, some authors replicate independently some samples to be studied by the MSAP technique; they determine an error rate per fragment and only consider to analyze those fragments with error rates lower than a threshold value [ 89 , 119 , 120 ]. These authors report error rates ranging from 2% to 10%.…”

Section: Statistical Methods For Msap Analysis In Plant Conservatimentioning

confidence: 99%

Application of the MSAP Technique to Evaluate Epigenetic Changes in Plant Conservation

González‐Benito

Ibáñez

Pirredda

et al. 2020

IJMS

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Epigenetic variation, and particularly DNA methylation, is involved in plasticity and responses to changes in the environment. Conservation biology studies have focused on the measurement of this variation to establish demographic parameters, diversity levels and population structure to design the appropriate conservation strategies. However, in ex situ conservation approaches, the main objective is to guarantee the characteristics of the conserved material (phenotype and epi-genetic). We review the use of the Methylation Sensitive Amplified Polymorphism (MSAP) technique to detect changes in the DNA methylation patterns of plant material conserved by the main ex situ plant conservation methods: seed banks, in vitro slow growth and cryopreservation. Comparison of DNA methylation patterns before and after conservation is a useful tool to check the fidelity of the regenerated plants, and, at the same time, may be related with other genetic variations that might appear during the conservation process (i.e., somaclonal variation). Analyses of MSAP profiles can be useful in the management of ex situ plant conservation but differs in the approach used in the in situ conservation. Likewise, an easy-to-use methodology is necessary for a rapid interpretation of data, in order to be readily implemented by conservation managers.

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Epigenetics of drought-induced trans-generational plasticity: consequences for range limit development

Cited by 21 publications

References 60 publications

Empirical patterns of environmental variation favor adaptive transgenerational plasticity

Empirical patterns of environmental variation favor adaptive transgenerational plasticity

DNA methylation mediates genetic variation for adaptive transgenerational plasticity

Application of the MSAP Technique to Evaluate Epigenetic Changes in Plant Conservation

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