Connecting the sun to flowering in sunflower adaptation

Blackman, Benjamin K.; Michaels, Scott D.; Rieseberg, Loren H.

doi:10.1111/j.1365-294x.2011.05166.x

Cited by 47 publications

(92 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…Adaptive latitudinal clines in flowering time across the Great Plains have been studied at the molecular level in detail in sunflowers (Helianthus annuus), in which variation appears to be modulated by changes in the photoperiod and gibberellin pathways (Blackman et al 2011). It would be interesting to determine whether the same or different molecular pathways play a role in the flowering time cline of P. virgatum across the Great Plains and whether those genes contribute to other phenological adaptations such as the timing of winter dormancy and spring emergence.…”

Section: Future Studies On Genetic Mechanisms Of Adaptationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptations between Ecotypes and along Environmental Gradients inPanicum virgatum

Lowry

Behrman

Grabowski

et al. 2014

The American Naturalist

125

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Determining the patterns and mechanisms of natural selection in the wild is of fundamental importance to understanding the differentiation of populations and the evolution of new species. However, it is often unknown the extent to which adaptive genetic variation is distributed among ecotypes between distinct habitats versus along large-scale geographic environmental gradients, such as those that track latitude. Classic studies of selection in the wild in switchgrass, Panicum virgatum, tested for adaptation at both of these levels of natural variation. Here we review what these field experiments and modern agronomic field trials have taught us about natural variation and selection at both the ecotype and environmental gradient levels in P. virgatum. With recent genome sequencing efforts in P. virgatum, it is poised to become an excellent system for understanding the adaptation of grassland species across the eastern half of North America. The identification of genetic loci involved in different types of adaptations will help to understand the evolutionary mechanisms of diversification within P. virgatum and provide useful information for the breeding of high-yielding cultivars for different ecoregions.

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Section: Future Studies On Genetic Mechanisms Of Adaptationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adaptations between Ecotypes and along Environmental Gradients inPanicum virgatum

Lowry

Behrman

Grabowski

et al. 2014

The American Naturalist

125

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“…This variation is commonly observed (Long et al 2007;Li et al 2010;Anderson et al 2011;Olson et al 2012) and is often spatially structured (Paaby et al 2010;Blackman et al 2011). This variation is commonly observed (Long et al 2007;Li et al 2010;Anderson et al 2011;Olson et al 2012) and is often spatially structured (Paaby et al 2010;Blackman et al 2011). This allelic variation can contribute to differences in life cycle across a species' range.…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

Modeling the Influence of Genetic and Environmental Variation on the Expression of Plant Life Cycles across Landscapes

Burghardt

Metcalf

Wilczek

et al. 2015

The American Naturalist

100

165

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Organisms develop through multiple life stages that differ in environmental tolerances. The seasonal timing, or phenology, of life-stage transitions determines the environmental conditions to which each life stage is exposed and the length of time required to complete a generation. Both environmental and genetic factors contribute to phenological variation, yet predicting their combined effect on life cycles across a geographic range remains a challenge. We linked submodels of the plasticity of individual life stages to create an integrated model that predicts life-cycle phenology in complex environments. We parameterized the model for Arabidopsis thaliana and simulated life cycles in four locations. We compared multiple "genotypes" by varying two parameters associated with natural genetic variation in phenology: seed dormancy and floral repression. The model predicted variation in life cycles across locations that qualitatively matches observed natural phenology. Seed dormancy had larger effects on life-cycle length than floral repression, and results suggest that a genetic cline in dormancy maintains a life-cycle length of 1 year across the geographic range of this species. By integrating across life stages, this approach demonstrates how genetic variation in one transition can influence subsequent transitions and the geographic distribution of life cycles more generally.

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“…For instance, among wild sunflower populations, the difference in flowering time between inductive short days and noninductive long days decreases with increasing latitude, such that extreme northern populations are day neutral, allowing rapid flowering in short northern growing seasons (Blackman et al, 2011). Similar clines are observed in long-day plants, likely because extending the preflowering growth period later into the milder springs and summers found at higher latitudes increases seed yield (e.g.…”

Section: Variation In Magnitude Of Photoperiodic Responsementioning

confidence: 54%

“…Notably, they all implicate alterations to the control of floral induction in the shoot apex rather than divergence in the measurement of photoperiod in the leaf. First, long-day flowering evolved from short-day flowering as wild populations of the common sunflower (Helianthus annuus) expanded the species range into southern Texas (Blackman et al, 2011). This reversal is associated with differences in the photoperiod sensitivity of shoot apical but not foliar expression of homologs of the floral inducer SUPPRESSOR OF OVEREXPRESSION OF CONSTANS1 (SOC1).…”

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confidence: 99%

Changing Responses to Changing Seasons: Natural Variation in the Plasticity of Flowering Time

Blackman

2016

Plant Physiol.

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For plants that live in seasonally changing environments, timing is everything. Matching developmental transitions with the best times of year for growth and reproduction is necessary to maintain high fitness. Consequently, plants employ many mechanisms to sense and integrate multiple predictive seasonal cues to regulate their major developmental shifts. As the annual timing with which the growing season starts and ends changes across the landscape, natural selection has led to the evolution of the mechanisms that regulate the developmental plasticity of flowering among populations or varieties of species and crop plants that inhabit broad geographic ranges. There has been significant recent progress in describing the diversity of this variation in flowering time plasticity and in identifying the specific genetic changes responsible. Such work is an essential step toward understanding the processes that have shaped current and past adaptation, managing genetic diversity and improving crops in the face of climate change, and forecasting how populations may respond plastically and evolutionarily to future environmental challenges. In this Update, I review the findings of recent studies of natural variation in the plasticity of flowering to photoperiod, vernalization, and ambient temperature, and the implications and open questions raised by this work are considered.A fundamental adaptation of plants inhabiting seasonal environments is their ability to match the annual timing of major life history transitions to the local growing season. Most species achieve this synchrony through developmental plasticity. In other words, individuals sense how environmental cues like daylength and temperature change from winter to spring to summer to fall. The information gleaned from these cycles is then integrated molecularly so that germination, flowering, and other key transitions occur during periods favorable for growth, reproduction, and seed set. However, as the climate changes over the 21st century and the relative timing of annual cycles in temperature and precipitation shifts, once adaptive responses will no longer effectively predict the best calendar dates to initiate these essential developmental events (Nicotra et al., 2010;Wilczek et al., 2010). Because natural populations and cultivated landraces of many taxa have evolved to thrive in geographically diverse habitats and climates as their ranges have expanded, they harbor natural variants that may prove instructive in breeding crops and conserving native plant diversity in the face of future environmental challenges. Thus, a critical objective in plant biology is

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Connecting the sun to flowering in sunflower adaptation

Cited by 47 publications

References 45 publications

Adaptations between Ecotypes and along Environmental Gradients inPanicum virgatum

Adaptations between Ecotypes and along Environmental Gradients inPanicum virgatum

Modeling the Influence of Genetic and Environmental Variation on the Expression of Plant Life Cycles across Landscapes

Changing Responses to Changing Seasons: Natural Variation in the Plasticity of Flowering Time

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