Dataset Information

Phenotypic variation and differentiated gene expression of Australian plants in response to declining rainfall.

ABSTRACT: Declining rainfall is projected to have negative impacts on the demographic performance of plant species. Little is known about the adaptive capacity of species to respond to drying climates, and whether adaptation can keep pace with climate change. In fire-prone ecosystems, episodic recruitment of perennial plant species in the first year post-fire imposes a specific selection environment, offering a unique opportunity to quantify the scope for adaptive response to climate change. We examined the growth of seedlings of four fire-killed species under control and drought conditions for seeds from populations established in years following fire receiving average-to-above-average winter rainfall, or well-below-average winter rainfall. We show that offspring of plants that had established under drought had more efficient water uptake, and/or stored more water per unit biomass, or developed denser leaves, and all maintained higher survival in simulated drought than did offspring of plants established in average annual rainfall years. Adaptive phenotypic responses were not consistent across all traits and species, while plants that had established under severe drought or established in years with average-to-above-average rainfall had an overall different physiological response when growing either with or without water constraints. Seedlings descended from plants established under severe drought also had elevated gene expression in key pathways relating to stress response. Our results demonstrate the capacity for rapid adaptation to climate change through phenotypic variation and regulation of gene expression. However, effective and rapid adaptation to climate change may vary among species depending on their capacity to maintain robust populations under multiple stresses.

SUBMITTER: D'Agui H

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5180152 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Phenotypic variation and differentiated gene expression of Australian plants in response to declining rainfall.

D'Agui Haylee H Fowler William W Lim Sim Lin SL Enright Neal N He Tianhua T

Royal Society open science 20161116 11

Declining rainfall is projected to have negative impacts on the demographic performance of plant species. Little is known about the adaptive capacity of species to respond to drying climates, and whether adaptation can keep pace with climate change. In fire-prone ecosystems, episodic recruitment of perennial plant species in the first year post-fire imposes a specific selection environment, offering a unique opportunity to quantify the scope for adaptive response to climate change. We examined t ...[more]

PMID: 28018654

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Project description:Common Reed (Phragmites australis) is a frequent component of inland and coastal wetlands in temperate zones worldwide. Ongoing environmental changes have resulted in the decline of this species in many areas and invasive expansion in others. In the Gippsland Lakes coastal waterway system in south-eastern Australia, increasing salinity is thought to have contributed to the loss of fringing P. australis reed beds leading to increased shoreline erosion. A major goal of restoration in this waterway is to address the effect of salinity by planting a genetically diverse range of salt-tolerant P. australis plants. This has prompted an interest in examining the variation in salinity tolerance among clones and the underlying basis of this variation. Transcriptomics is an approach for identifying variation in genes and their expression levels associated with the exposure of plants to environmental stressors. In this paper we present initial results of the first comparative culm transcriptome analysis of P. australis clones. After sampling plants from sites of varied surface water salinity across the Gippsland Lakes, replicates from three clones from highly saline sites (>18 g L(-1) TDS) and three from low salinity sites (<6 g L(-1)) were grown in containers irrigated with either fresh (<0.1 g L(-1)) or saline water (16 g L(-1)). An RNA-Seq protocol was used to generate sequence data from culm tissues from the 12 samples allowing an analysis of differential gene expression. Among the key findings, we identified several genes uniquely up- or down-regulated in clones from highly saline sites when irrigated with saline water relative to clones from low salinity sites. These included the higher relative expression levels of genes associated with photosynthesis and lignan biosynthesis indicative of a greater ability of these clones to maintain growth under saline conditions. Combined with growth data from a parallel study, our data suggests local adaptation of certain clones to salinity and provides a basis for more detailed studies.

Dataset Information

Phenotypic variation and differentiated gene expression of Australian plants in response to declining rainfall.

Publications

Phenotypic variation and differentiated gene expression of Australian plants in response to declining rainfall.

Similar Datasets

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