Natural variation at FLM splicing has pleiotropic effects modulating ecological strategies in Arabidopsis thaliana
2020
Hanemian, Mathieu | Vasseur, François | Marchadier, Elodie, | Gilbault, Elodie, | BRESSON, Justine | Gy, Isabelle | Violle, Cyrille | Loudet, Olivier,
Investigating the evolution of complex phenotypes and the underlying molecular bases of their variation is critical to understand how organisms adapt to their environment. Applying classical quantitative genetics on a segregating population derived from a Can-0xCol-0 cross, we identify the MADS-box transcription factor FLOWERING LOCUS M (FLM) as a player of the phenotypic variation in plant growth and color. We show that allelic variation at FLM modulates plant growth strategy along the leaf economics spectrum, a trade-off between resource acquisition and resource conservation, observable across thousands of plant species. Functional differences at FLM rely on a single intronic substitution, disturbing transcript splicing and leading to the accumulation of non-functional FLM transcripts. Associations between this substitution and phenotypic and climatic data across Arabidopsis natural populations, show how noncoding genetic variation at a single gene might be adaptive through pleiotropic effects.
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