scholarly journals Evolutionary trade-offs between baseline and plastic gene expression in two congeneric oyster species

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 20190202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ao Li ◽  
Li Li ◽  
Wei Wang ◽  
Guofan Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Gene Expression ◽  
Regulation Of Gene Expression ◽  
Thermal Adaptation ◽  
Common Garden ◽  
Evolutionary Strategy ◽  
Genetic Adaptation ◽  
Ambient Conditions ◽  
Oyster Species ◽  
Trade Offs

Organismal responses to environmental stresses are a determinant of the effect of climate change. These can occur through the regulation of gene expression, involving genetic adaptation and plastic changes as evolutionary strategy. Heat shock protein ( hsp ) family genes are extensively expanded and play important roles in thermal adaptation in oysters. We investigated expression of all heat-responsive hsp s in two allopatric congeneric oyster species, Crassostrea gigas and C. angulata , which are respectively distributed along the northern and southern coasts of China, using common garden and reciprocal transplant experiments. Our results showed that hsp s in C. gigas have evolved higher basal levels of expression under ambient conditions at each field site, with lower expression plasticity in response to heat stress in comparison to C. angulata , which exhibited lower baseline expression but higher expression plasticity. This pattern was fixed regardless of environmental disturbance, potentially implying genetic assimilation. Our findings indicate divergent adaptive strategies with underlying evolutionary trade-offs between genetic adaptation and plasticity at the molecular level in two oyster congeners in the face of rapid climate change.

scholarly journals Evolution of ageing as a tangle of trade-offs: energy versus function

2019 ◽  
Vol 286 (1911) ◽  
pp. 20191604 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexei A. Maklakov ◽  
Tracey Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Early Life ◽  
Regulation Of Gene Expression ◽  
Late Life ◽  
Cellular Damage ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Relative Contribution ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Energy Trade ◽  
And Function

Despite tremendous progress in recent years, our understanding of the evolution of ageing is still incomplete. A dominant paradigm maintains that ageing evolves due to the competing energy demands of reproduction and somatic maintenance leading to slow accumulation of unrepaired cellular damage with age. However, the centrality of energy trade-offs in ageing has been increasingly challenged as studies in different organisms have uncoupled the trade-off between reproduction and longevity. An emerging theory is that ageing instead is caused by biological processes that are optimized for early-life function but become harmful when they continue to run-on unabated in late life. This idea builds on the realization that early-life regulation of gene expression can break down in late life because natural selection is too weak to optimize it. Empirical evidence increasingly supports the hypothesis that suboptimal gene expression in adulthood can result in physiological malfunction leading to organismal senescence. We argue that the current state of the art in the study of ageing contradicts the widely held view that energy trade-offs between growth, reproduction, and longevity are the universal underpinning of senescence. Future research should focus on understanding the relative contribution of energy and function trade-offs to the evolution and expression of ageing.

scholarly journals Molecular Tools for Adapting Viticulture to Climate Change

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Éric Gomès ◽  
Pascale Maillot ◽  
Éric Duchêne
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Gene Expression ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Developmental Stages ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Sugar Content ◽  
Regulation Of Gene Expression ◽  
Molecular Tools ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change

Adaptation of viticulture to climate change includes exploration of new geographical areas, new training systems, new management practices, or new varieties, both for rootstocks and scions. Molecular tools can be defined as molecular approaches used to study DNAs, RNAs, and proteins in all living organisms. We present here the current knowledge about molecular tools and their potential usefulness in three aspects of grapevine adaptation to the ongoing climate change. (i) Molecular tools for understanding grapevine response to environmental stresses. A fine description of the regulation of gene expression is a powerful tool to understand the physiological mechanisms set up by the grapevine to respond to abiotic stress such as high temperatures or drought. The current knowledge on gene expression is continuously evolving with increasing evidence of the role of alternative splicing, small RNAs, long non-coding RNAs, DNA methylation, or chromatin activity. (ii) Genetics and genomics of grapevine stress tolerance. The description of the grapevine genome is more and more precise. The genetic variations among genotypes are now revealed with new technologies with the sequencing of very long DNA molecules. High throughput technologies for DNA sequencing also allow now the genetic characterization at the same time of hundreds of genotypes for thousands of points in the genome, which provides unprecedented datasets for genotype-phenotype associations studies. We review the current knowledge on the genetic determinism of traits for the adaptation to climate change. We focus on quantitative trait loci and molecular markers available for developmental stages, tolerance to water stress/water use efficiency, sugar content, acidity, and secondary metabolism of the berries. (iii) Controlling the genome and its expression to allow breeding of better-adapted genotypes. High-density DNA genotyping can be used to select genotypes with specific interesting alleles but genomic selection is also a powerful method able to take into account the genetic information along the whole genome to predict a phenotype. Modern technologies are also able to generate mutations that are possibly interesting for generating new phenotypes but the most promising one is the direct editing of the genome at a precise location.

scholarly journals How will mosquitoes adapt to climate change?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Couper ◽  
Johannah Farner ◽  
Jamie Caldwell ◽  
Marissa Childs ◽  
Mallory Harris ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Disease Transmission ◽  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Genotypic Variation ◽  
Thermal Adaptation ◽  
Common Garden ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Population Growth Rates ◽  
Evolutionary Rescue

Accurately predicting and mitigating the effects of climate change on species ranges and interactions is a critical challenge. In particular, mosquito-borne diseases like malaria and dengue are poised to shift with climate change. Understanding this impact hinges on a key open question: How will mosquitoes adapt to climate change? Here we adapt a simple framework widely used in conservation biology—evolutionary rescue models—to investigate the potential for mosquito climate adaptation, and we synthesize current evidence, focusing on adaptation to rising temperatures. Short mosquito generation times, high population growth rates, and strong temperature-imposed selection favor mosquito thermal adaptation. However, knowledge gaps about the extent of phenotypic and genotypic variation in thermal tolerance within mosquito populations, the environmental sensitivity of selection, and the role of phenotypic plasticity constrain our ability to make more precise estimates. Future research efforts should prioritize filling these data gaps. Specifically, we outline how common garden and selection experiments can be used to this end. Collecting and incorporating these data into an evolutionary rescue framework will improve estimates of mosquito adaptive potential and of changes in mosquito-borne disease transmission under climate change, and this approach can be applied more broadly to pests as well as species of conservation concern.

scholarly journals Selection on adaptive and maladaptive gene expression plasticity during thermal adaptation to urban heat islands

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shane C. Campbell-Staton ◽  
Jonathan P. Velotta ◽  
Kristin M. Winchell
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Heat Tolerance ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Thermal Adaptation ◽  
Common Garden ◽  
Urban Heat Islands ◽  
Adaptive Plasticity ◽  
Expression Change ◽  
Heat Islands ◽  
Urban Heat

AbstractPhenotypic plasticity enables a single genotype to produce multiple phenotypes in response to environmental variation. Plasticity may play a critical role in the colonization of novel environments, but its role in adaptive evolution is controversial. Here we suggest that rapid parallel regulatory adaptation of Anolis lizards to urban heat islands is due primarily to selection for reduced and/or reversed heat-induced plasticity that is maladaptive in urban thermal conditions. We identify evidence for polygenic selection across genes of the skeletal muscle transcriptome associated with heat tolerance. Forest lizards raised in common garden conditions exhibit heat-induced changes in expression of these genes that largely correlate with decreased heat tolerance, consistent with maladaptive regulatory response to high-temperature environments. In contrast, urban lizards display reduced gene expression plasticity after heat challenge in common garden and a significant increase in gene expression change that is congruent with greater heat tolerance, a putatively adaptive state in warmer urban environments. Genes displaying maladaptive heat-induced plasticity repeatedly show greater genetic divergence between urban and forest habitats than those displaying adaptive plasticity. These results highlight the role of selection against maladaptive regulatory plasticity during rapid adaptive modification of complex systems in the wild.

scholarly journals A resurrection study reveals limited evolution of thermal performance in response to recent climate change across the geographic range of the scarlet monkeyflower

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Wooliver ◽  
Silas B. Tittes ◽  
Seema N. Sheth
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Thermal Performance ◽  
Thermal Adaptation ◽  
Leading Edge ◽  
Geographic Range ◽  
Average Decrease ◽  
Climate Anomalies ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Evolutionary Response ◽  
Recent Climate

AbstractEvolutionary rescue can prevent populations from declining under climate change, and should be more likely at high-latitude, “leading” edges of species’ ranges due to greater temperature anomalies and gene flow from warm-adapted populations. Using a resurrection study with seeds collected before and after a seven-year period of record warming, we tested for thermal adaptation in the scarlet monkeyflower Mimulus cardinalis. We grew ancestors and descendants from northern-edge, central, and southern-edge populations across eight temperatures. Despite recent climate anomalies, populations showed limited evolution of thermal performance curves. However, one southern population evolved a narrower thermal performance breadth by 1.25 °C, which matches the direction and magnitude of the average decrease in seasonality experienced. Consistent with the climate variability hypothesis, thermal performance breadth increased with temperature seasonality across the species’ geographic range. Inconsistent with performance trade-offs between low and high temperatures across populations, we did not detect a positive relationship between thermal optimum and mean temperature. These findings fail to support the hypothesis that evolutionary response to climate change is greatest at the leading edge, and suggest that the evolution of thermal performance is unlikely to rescue most populations from the detrimental effects of rapidly changing climate.

scholarly journals Transcriptome analysis reveals plasticity in gene regulation due to environmental cues in Primula sikkimensis, a high altitude plant species

BMC Genomics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Priya Darshini Gurung ◽  
Atul Kumar Upadhyay ◽  
Pardeep Kumar Bhardwaj ◽  
Ramanathan Sowdhamini ◽  
Uma Ramakrishnan
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Gene Expression ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Ambient Condition ◽  
Differentially Expressed ◽  
Transplant Experiment ◽  
Range Limit ◽  
Ambient Conditions ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change ◽  
Altitudinal Range

Abstract Background Studying plasticity in gene expression in natural systems is crucial, for predicting and managing the effects of climate change on plant species. To understand the contribution of gene expression level variations to abiotic stress compensation in a Himalaya plant (Primula sikkimensis), we carried out a transplant experiment within (Ambient), and beyond (Below Ambient and Above Ambient) the altitudinal range limit of species. We sequenced nine transcriptomes (three each from each altitudinal range condition) using Illumina sequencing technology. We compared the fitness variation of transplants among three transplant conditions. Results A large number of significantly differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between below ambient versus ambient (109) and above ambient versus ambient (85) were identified. Transcripts involved in plant growth and development were mostly up-regulated in below ambient conditions. Transcripts involved in signalling, defence, and membrane transport were mostly up-regulated in above ambient condition. Pathway analysis revealed that most of the genes involved in metabolic processes, secondary metabolism, and flavonoid biosynthesis were differentially expressed in below ambient conditions, whereas most of the genes involved in photosynthesis and plant hormone signalling were differentially expressed in above ambient conditions. In addition, we observed higher reproductive fitness in transplant individuals at below ambient condition compared to above ambient conditions; contrary to what we expect from the cold adaptive P. sikkimensis plants. Conclusions We reveal P. sikkimensis’s capacity for rapid adaptation to climate change through transcriptome variation, which may facilitate the phenotypic plasticity observed in morphological and life history traits. The genes and pathways identified provide a genetic resource for understanding the temperature stress (both the hot and cold stress) tolerance mechanism of P. sikkimensis in their natural environment.

scholarly journals Phenotypic variation and differentiated gene expression of Australian plants in response to declining rainfall

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (11) ◽  
pp. 160637 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haylee D'Agui ◽  
William Fowler ◽  
Sim Lin Lim ◽  
Neal Enright ◽  
Tianhua He
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Gene Expression ◽  
Plant Species ◽  
Phenotypic Variation ◽  
Regulation Of Gene Expression ◽  
Annual Rainfall ◽  
Severe Drought ◽  
Rapid Adaptation ◽  
Adaptation To Climate Change ◽  
Winter Rainfall

Declining rainfall is projected to have negative impacts on the demographic performance of plant species. Little is known about the adaptive capacity of species to respond to drying climates, and whether adaptation can keep pace with climate change. In fire-prone ecosystems, episodic recruitment of perennial plant species in the first year post-fire imposes a specific selection environment, offering a unique opportunity to quantify the scope for adaptive response to climate change. We examined the growth of seedlings of four fire-killed species under control and drought conditions for seeds from populations established in years following fire receiving average-to-above-average winter rainfall, or well-below-average winter rainfall. We show that offspring of plants that had established under drought had more efficient water uptake, and/or stored more water per unit biomass, or developed denser leaves, and all maintained higher survival in simulated drought than did offspring of plants established in average annual rainfall years. Adaptive phenotypic responses were not consistent across all traits and species, while plants that had established under severe drought or established in years with average-to-above-average rainfall had an overall different physiological response when growing either with or without water constraints. Seedlings descended from plants established under severe drought also had elevated gene expression in key pathways relating to stress response. Our results demonstrate the capacity for rapid adaptation to climate change through phenotypic variation and regulation of gene expression. However, effective and rapid adaptation to climate change may vary among species depending on their capacity to maintain robust populations under multiple stresses.

Linking transcription, RNA polymerase II elongation and alternative splicing

2020 ◽  
Vol 477 (16) ◽  
pp. 3091-3104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciana E. Giono ◽  
Alberto R. Kornblihtt
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Alternative Splicing ◽  
Rna Polymerase Ii ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Transcription Elongation ◽  
Single Gene ◽  
Regulation Of Gene Expression ◽  
Regulation Of Transcription ◽  
Stepping Stones ◽  
Eukaryotic Transcription

Gene expression is an intricately regulated process that is at the basis of cell differentiation, the maintenance of cell identity and the cellular responses to environmental changes. Alternative splicing, the process by which multiple functionally distinct transcripts are generated from a single gene, is one of the main mechanisms that contribute to expand the coding capacity of genomes and help explain the level of complexity achieved by higher organisms. Eukaryotic transcription is subject to multiple layers of regulation both intrinsic — such as promoter structure — and dynamic, allowing the cell to respond to internal and external signals. Similarly, alternative splicing choices are affected by all of these aspects, mainly through the regulation of transcription elongation, making it a regulatory knob on a par with the regulation of gene expression levels. This review aims to recapitulate some of the history and stepping-stones that led to the paradigms held today about transcription and splicing regulation, with major focus on transcription elongation and its effect on alternative splicing.

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