Skimming the surface: duckweed as a model system in ecology and evolution

Laird, Robert A.; Barks, Patrick

doi:10.1002/ajb2.1194

Cited by 54 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 26 publications

(25 reference statements)

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“…This evolutionary trajectory correlates to a general reduction in both size and morphological complexity, as first observed by Landolt (1986); Supplementary Figures 1A-E. All species comprise of a frond or thallus (Hillman, 1961), a leaf-like structure that in most species floats on the water's surface, with one face exposed to the air and one in contact with the water (Laird and Barks, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 66%

“…Duckweed primarily reproduce asexually and are extremely fast growing, giving them a wide range of potential applications in industry and agriculture (Hillman and Culley, 1978;Yu et al, 2014;Ziegler et al, 2015). The loss of structures typical of angiosperms in duckweed may elucidate mechanisms of vestigiality and reveal how organ functionality varies between species (Laird and Barks, 2018). A feature of the life cycle in several of the duckweeds is the production of turions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Preparation, Scanning and Analysis of Duckweed Using X-Ray Computed Microtomography

et al. 2021

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Quantification of anatomical and compositional features underpins both fundamental and applied studies of plant structure and function. Relatively few non-invasive techniques are available for aquatic plants. Traditional methods such as sectioning are low-throughput and provide 2-dimensional information. X-ray Computed Microtomography (μCT) offers a non-destructive method of three dimensional (3D) imaging in planta, but has not been widely used for aquatic species, due to the difficulties in sample preparation and handling. We present a novel sample handling protocol for aquatic plant material developed for μCT imaging, using duckweed plants and turions as exemplars, and compare the method against existing approaches. This technique allows for previously unseen 3D volume analysis of gaseous filled spaces, cell material, and sub-cellular features. The described embedding method, utilizing petrolatum gel for sample mounting, was shown to preserve sample quality during scanning, and to display sufficiently different X-ray attenuation to the plant material to be easily differentiated by image analysis pipelines. We present this technique as an improved method for anatomical structural analysis that provides novel cellular and developmental information.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 66%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preparation, Scanning and Analysis of Duckweed Using X-Ray Computed Microtomography

et al. 2021

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“…Spirodela polyrhiza , or Greater Duckweed, is a floating aquatic plant that inhabits stagnant water bodies. It is ideal for measuring geographical variation in reaction norms for a number of reasons (Laird & Barks, 2018). It is widespread across North America (Hillman, 1961), occupying a broad latitudinal range.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Latitudinal variation in norms of reaction of phenology in the greater duckweed Spirodela polyrhiza

Hitsman

Simons

2020

J of Evolutionary Biology

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Natural environments vary temporally in factors that may affect fitness such as in season length (Yoshifuji et al., 2006), precipitation (Liu & Yin, 2000) and temperature (Aesawy & Hasanean, 1998; Jones & Briffa, 1992). Response to such environmental variation may take several forms, including adaptive tracking, adaptive plasticity, and the evolution of bet-hedging traits. Phenotypic plasticity, the environment-dependent phenotypic expression of a genotype can be adaptive or nonadaptive. Nonadaptive plasticity is generally interpreted as a direct rather than evolved response to environmental differences or stresses (Ghalambor, McKay, Carroll, & Reznick, 2007; Van Kleunen & Fischer, 2005). For example, plasticity in several life-history traits in Arabidopsis thaliana in response to plant density appear to provide no fitness benefit (Dorn, Pyle, & Schmitt, 2000). Adaptive plasticity, when phenotypic change occurs in the same direction as the fitness optimum (Ghalambor et al., 2007), requires environmental cues that reliably indicate

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“…Duckweed has been used in many ecotoxicological and phytoremediation studies and there is growing interest in duckweed as biofuel, animal feedstock, and food [14,15]. The recent development of duckweed genomic resources and molecular tools have positioned duckweed as a model system for several aspects of plant biology [16][17][18][19]. Duckweed has a simple body architecture consisting of mainly leaf-like structures termed fronds that float on the water surface while roots are only found in some species as simple roots with no lateral branching or root hairs [13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Duckweed hosts a taxonomically similar bacterial assemblage as the terrestrial leaf microbiome

Acosta

Gilbert

et al. 2020

PLoS ONE

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Culture-independent characterization of microbial communities associated with popular plant model systems have increased our understanding of the plant microbiome. However, the integration of other model systems, such as duckweed, could facilitate our understanding of plant microbiota assembly and evolution. Duckweeds are floating aquatic plants with many characteristics, including small size and reduced plant architecture, that suggest their use as a facile model system for plant microbiome studies. Here, we investigated the structure and assembly of the duckweed bacterial microbiome. First, a culture-independent survey of the duckweed bacterial microbiome from different locations in New Jersey revealed similar phylogenetic profiles. These studies showed that Proteobacteria is a dominant phylum in the duckweed bacterial microbiome. To observe the assembly dynamics of the duckweed bacterial community, we inoculated quasi-gnotobiotic duckweed with wastewater effluent from a municipal wastewater treatment plant. Our results revealed that duckweed strongly shapes its bacterial microbiome and forms distinct associations with bacterial community members from the initial inoculum. Additionally, these inoculation studies showed the bacterial communities of different duckweed species were similar in taxa composition and abundance. Analysis across the different duckweed bacterial communities collected in this study identified a set of "core" bacterial taxa consistently present on duckweed irrespective of the locale and context. Furthermore, comparison of the duckweed bacterial community to that of rice and Arabidopsis revealed a conserved taxonomic structure between the duckweed microbiome and the terrestrial leaf microbiome. Our results suggest that duckweeds utilize similar bacterial community assembly principles as those found in terrestrial plants and indicate a highly conserved structuring effect of leaf tissue on the plant microbiome.

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Skimming the surface: duckweed as a model system in ecology and evolution

Cited by 54 publications

References 26 publications

Preparation, Scanning and Analysis of Duckweed Using X-Ray Computed Microtomography

Preparation, Scanning and Analysis of Duckweed Using X-Ray Computed Microtomography

Latitudinal variation in norms of reaction of phenology in the greater duckweed Spirodela polyrhiza

Duckweed hosts a taxonomically similar bacterial assemblage as the terrestrial leaf microbiome

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