Drought adaptation in Arabidopsis thaliana by extensive genetic loss-of-function.

ABSTRACT: Interdisciplinary syntheses are needed to scale up discovery of the environmental drivers and molecular basis of adaptation in nature. Here we integrated novel approaches using whole genome sequences, satellite remote sensing, and transgenic experiments to study natural loss-of-function alleles associated with drought histories in wild Arabidopsis thaliana. The genes we identified exhibit population genetic signatures of parallel molecular evolution, selection for loss-of-function, and shared associations with flowering time phenotypes in directions consistent with longstanding adaptive hypotheses seven times more often than expected by chance. We then confirmed predicted phenotypes experimentally in transgenic knockout lines. These findings reveal the importance of drought timing t

SUBMITTER: Monroe JG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6326724 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature