Flowering time is an adaptive life history trait. , a close relative of and a young species, displays extensive variation for flowering time but low standing genetic variation due to an extreme bottleneck event, providing an excellent opportunity to understand how phenotypic diversity can occur with a limited initial gene pool. Here, we demonstrate that common allelic variation and parallel evolution at the locus confer variation in flowering time in We show that two overlapping deletions in the 5' untranslated region (UTR) of , which are associated with local changes in chromatin conformation and histone modifications, reduce its expression levels and promote flowering. We further show that these two pervasive variants originated independently in natural populations after speciation and spread to an intermediate frequency, suggesting a role of this parallel -regulatory change in adaptive evolution. Our results provide an example of how parallel mutations in the same 5' UTR region can shape phenotypic evolution in plants.
Using a collection of papers gathered from the Web of Science, and defining disciplines by the JCR classification, this paper compares the disciplinary structure of the G7 countries (representing high S&T level countries) and the BRIC countries (representing fast breaking countries in S&T) by using bibliometric methods. It discusses the similarity and the balance of their disciplinary structure. We found that: (1) High S&T level countries have a similar national disciplinary structure; (2) In recent years the disciplinary structure of the BRIC countries has become more and more similar to that of the G7 countries; (3) The disciplinary structure of the G7 countries is more balanced than that of the BRIC countries (4) In the G7 countries more emphasis goes to the life sciences, while BRIC countries focus on physics, chemistry, mathematics and engineering.
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