Phenotypic effects of salt and heat stress over three generations in Arabidopsis thaliana.

ABSTRACT: Current and predicted environmental change will force many organisms to adapt to novel conditions, especially sessile organisms such as plants. It is therefore important to better understand how plants react to environmental stress and to what extent genotypes differ in such responses. It has been proposed that adaptation to novel conditions could be facilitated by heritable epigenetic changes induced by environmental stress, independent of genetic variation. Here we assessed phenotypic effects of heat and salt stress within and across three generations using four highly inbred Arabidopsis thaliana genotypes (Col, Cvi, Ler and Sha). Salt stress generally decreased fitness, but genotypes were differently affected, suggesting that susceptibility of A. thaliana to salt stress varies among gen

SUBMITTER: Suter L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3828257 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature