Assortment of Flowering Time and Immunity Alleles in Natural Arabidopsis thaliana Populations Suggests Immunity and Vegetative Lifespan Strategies Coevolve.

ABSTRACT: The selective impact of pathogen epidemics on host defenses can be strong but remains transient. By contrast, life-history shifts can durably and continuously modify the balance between costs and benefits of immunity, which arbitrates the evolution of host defenses. Their impact on the evolutionary dynamics of host immunity, however, has seldom been documented. Optimal investment into immunity is expected to decrease with shortening lifespan, because a shorter life decreases the probability to encounter pathogens or enemies. Here, we document that in natural populations of Arabidopsis thaliana, the expression levels of immunity genes correlate positively with flowering time, which in annual species is a proxy for lifespan. Using a novel genetic strategy based on bulk-segregants, we partiti

SUBMITTER: Glander S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6133262 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature