“…For example, gene bodies of NLRs in common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) are targeted by RdDM, of which approximately half are methylated in all three contexts (CG, CHH, CHG) (Richard et al, 2018b), while other plant species lack gene body methylation altogether (Bewick et al, 2016). Furthermore, conifers differ from flowering plants in that 21-nt sRNAs, rather than 24-nt sRNAs, make up the majority of the sRNA population in vegetative tissues, despite their huge TE-rich genomes (Nakamura et al, 2019;Wilkinson et al, 2021). Perhaps most importantly, TEs make up only c. 20% of the genome in Arabidopsis, compared to > 80% in maize and wheat (Quesneville, 2020), which makes these crops more sensitive to the introduction of epigenetic variation (Li et al, 2014).…”