Developmental Control and Plasticity of Fruit and Seed Dimorphism in Aethionema arabicum.

Florian Rümpler, Gerhard Leubner-Metzger, Klaus Mummenhoff, Günter Theißen, Michael Eric Schranz, Stefan A Rensing, Ortrun Mittelsten Scheid, Miroslav Strnad, Nils Wiegand, Tina Steinbrecher, Katja Sperber, Christina Schulze, Teresa Lenser, Thu-Phuong Nguyen, Setareh Mohammadin, Zsuzsanna Mérai, Sara Mayland-Quellhorst, Marcel Kettermann, Christopher Grosche, Ali A Dönmez, Nezaket Adigüzel, Özge Selin Cevik, Kai Graeber

Journal: Plant physiology 2017;172(3):1691-1707

PMID: 27702842

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Abstract

Understanding how plants cope with changing habitats is a timely and important topic in plant research. Phenotypic plasticity describes the capability of a genotype to produce different phenotypes when exposed to different environmental conditions. In contrast, the constant production of a set of distinct phenotypes by one genotype mediates bet hedging, a strategy that reduces the temporal variance in fitness at the expense of a lowered arithmetic mean fitness. Both phenomena are thought to represent important adaptation strategies to unstable environments. However, little is known about the underlying mechanisms of these phenomena, partly due to the lack of suitable model systems. We used phylogenetic and comparative analyses of fruit and seed anatomy, biomechanics, physiology, and environmental responses to study fruit and seed heteromorphism, a typical morphological basis of a bet-hedging strategy of plants, in the annual Brassicaceae species Aethionema arabicum Our results indicate that heteromorphism evolved twice within the Aethionemeae, including once for the monophyletic annual Aethionema clade. The dimorphism of Ae. arabicum is associated with several anatomic, biomechanical, gene expression, and physiological differences between the fruit and seed morphs. However, fruit ratios and numbers change in response to different environmental conditions. Therefore, the life-history strategy of Ae. arabicum appears to be a blend of bet hedging and plasticity. Together with the available genomic resources, our results pave the way to use this species in future studies intended to unravel the molecular control of heteromorphism and plasticity.

Address: Department of Genetics, Friedrich Schiller University, 07743 Jena, Germany (T.L., F.R., G.T.).; School of Biological Sciences, Plant Molecular Science and Centre for Systems and Synthetic Biology, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, United Kingdom (K.G., C.S., T.S., G.L.-M.).; Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Mersin University, 33343 Mersin, Turkey (Ö.S.C.).; Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Mersin University, 33343 Mersin, Turkey (Ö.S.C.); [email protected].; Department of Biology, Science Faculty, Gazi University, 06500 Teknikokullar, Ankara, Turkey (N.A.).; Department of Biology, Science Faculty, Gazi University, 06500 Teknikokullar, Ankara, Turkey (N.A.); [email protected].; Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Hacettepe University, 06800 Beytepe, Ankara, Turkey (A.A.D.).; Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Hacettepe University, 06800 Beytepe, Ankara, Turkey (A.A.D.); [email protected].; Plant Cell Biology, Faculty of Biology, University of Marburg, 35043 Marburg, Germany (C.G., S.A.R.).; Plant Cell Biology, Faculty of Biology, University of Marburg, 35043 Marburg, Germany (C.G., S.A.R.); [email protected].; Department of Biology, Botany, University of Osnabrück, 49076 Osnabrueck, Germany (M.K., S.M.-Q., K.S., N.W., K.M.).; Department of Biology, Botany, University of Osnabrück, 49076 Osnabrueck, Germany (M.K., S.M.-Q., K.S., N.W., K.M.); [email protected].; Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna Biocenter, 1030 Vienna, Austria (Z.M., O.M.S.).; Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna Biocenter, 1030 Vienna, Austria (Z.M., O.M.S.); [email protected].; Biosystematics Group, Wageningen University, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands (S.M., T.-P.N., M.E.S.); and.; Biosystematics Group, Wageningen University, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands (S.M., T.-P.N., M.E.S.); and [email protected].; Department of Genetics, Friedrich Schiller University, 07743 Jena, Germany (T.L., F.R., G.T.); [email protected].; School of Biological Sciences, Plant Molecular Science and Centre for Systems and Synthetic Biology, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, United Kingdom (K.G., C.S., T.S., G.L.-M.); [email protected].; Laboratory of Growth Regulators, Centre of the Region Haná for Biotechnological and Agricultural Research, Palacký University and Institute of Experimental Botany, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, 78371 Olomouc, Czech Republic (M.S., G.L.-M.).; Laboratory of Growth Regulators, Centre of the Region Haná for Biotechnological and Agricultural Research, Palacký University and Institute of Experimental Botany, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, 78371 Olomouc, Czech Republic (M.S., G.L.-M.) [email protected].

DOI: 10.1104/pp.16.00838