Separating parental environment from seed size effects on next generation growth and development in Arabidopsis

Abstract

Plant growth and development is profoundly influenced by environmental conditions that laboratory experimentation typically attempts to control. However, growth conditions are not uniform between or even within laboratories and the extent to which these differences influence plant growth and development is unknown. Experiments with wild-type Arabidopsis thaliana were designed to quantify the influences of parental environment and seed size on growth and development in the next generation. A single lot of seed was planted in six environmental chambers and grown to maturity. The seed produced was mechanically sieved into small and large size classes then grown in a common environment and subjected to a set of assays spanning the life cycle. Analysis of variance demonstrated that seed size effects were particularly significant early in development, affecting primary root growth and gravitropism, but also flowering time. Parental environment affected progeny germination time, flowering and weight of seed the progeny produced. In some cases, the parental environment affected the magnitude of (interacted with) the observed seed size effects. These data indicate that life history circumstances of the parental generation can affect growth and development throughout the life cycle of the next generation to an extent that should be considered when performing genetic studies.

Mediation of seed provisioning in the transmission of environmental maternal effects in Maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Aiton)

“…Some authors only found effects of the maternal environment (for example, Galloway et al, 2009), whereas others have found the opposite (for example, Halpern, 2005). Most frequently, however, both factors have been found to significantly affect mean SM (for example, Stoehr et al, 1998;Elwell et al, 2011). Our results agree with these studies, and clearly show a strong genetic component in SM as well as a large influence of the maternal environment (Table 2, Figure 1).…”

“…These epigenetic changes may persist over the whole life cycle, and there is even evidence that they could be transmitted across generations (Boyko et al, 2010). In contrast, when maternal influence is through the mediation of SM it tends to be more pronounced during the first stages of seedling development, becoming less significant as the seedling ages (Elwell et al, 2011).…”

“…Both SM-dependent and SM-independent maternal effects have interested quantitative geneticists, evolutionary biologists and more recently genomic researchers, as they are an uncontrolled source of phenotypic variation that could hamper the quantification of true genetic variation (Bischoff and Mueller-Schaerer, 2010;Elwell et al, 2011). Several methods have been used to account for this potential bias in quantitative genetic studies.…”

Ecotypic differentiation in seed and seedling morphology and physiology among Cicuta virosa populations

“…4) was reasonable because the C. virosa dispersal strategy is floating and spreading through water flooding (Mulligan and Munro, 1981). But, the interpretation of positive correlation between germination (%) and water level was complicated due to the influence of seed weight on germination and a correlation between seed weight and site moisture (Schütz and Rave, 1999;Elwell et al, 2011).…”

Quantitative Variation in Responses to Root Spatial Constraint within Arabidopsis thaliana

“…This could have a number of explanations. First, it is already known that early life history at the embryo stage can influence auxin signaling and ultimately result in differential growth and biomass accumulation (Paul-Victor et al, 2010;Elwell et al, 2011). As growth is an iterative process built on all events that occurred before a given time point, any early life event has the potential to influence the organism even after the event has passed.…”