Developmental Genetics Basis of Life History Variation in Arabidopsis lyrata
Organisms differ in resource allocation and life-history strategies—an adaptive process that has reproduced great diversity of life on earth. Functional tradeoffs between growth and reproduction are an important determinant of lifetime fitness in iteroparous organisms, with optima varying by the env...
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| Format: | Dissertation |
| Language: | English |
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ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
01-01-2022
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| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | Organisms differ in resource allocation and life-history strategies—an adaptive process that has reproduced great diversity of life on earth. Functional tradeoffs between growth and reproduction are an important determinant of lifetime fitness in iteroparous organisms, with optima varying by the environment. However, the developmental genetics context of the life-history tradeoff problem has been poorly studied. Arabidopsis lyrata, a relative of the annual A. thaliana, provides an excellent model to study life-history tradeoffs' developmental and genetic basis, given its wide climatic distribution and life-history variation. Past research suggests that variation in apical dominance could be an essential aspect of life-history tradeoffs between populations. Auxin transport and signaling constitute major factors affecting apical dominance. Therefore, the primary objective of my study was to test the hypothesis that regulation of auxin transport underlies life-history variation in A. lyrata, specifically between two highly divergent populations, from Mayodan (North Carolina, USA) and Spiterstulen (Norway). My first objective was to test the effects of auxin transport on life-history traits in A. lyrata, which showed mild evidence of variation consistent with the actual differences between the populations. My next objective was to identify cis-regulatory variation in genes within major life-history QTL mapped in a previous study using allele-specific expression (ASE) analyses in F1 hybrids. The result showed significant differences in ASE of PIN3, which encodes a major auxin transport regulator. Overall, this research advances our understanding of life-history variation's developmental and genetic basis and supports the hypothesis that developmental variation in early life stages can be a key mechanism governing plant life-history tradeoffs. |
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| ISBN: | 9798841786818 |