Epigenetische Diversität von Gründlandpflanzen in den Biodiversitäts-Exploratorien
Evolution und Systematik der Pflanzen und Pilze
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
Land use intensification – including the expansion of managed area and the more intense use of existing agricultural fields – is the main cause of the loss of biological diversity. Land plants as primary producers are at the foundation of terrestrial ecosystems, and understanding how their evolution has been and will be shaped by anthropogenic activity is crucial for human societies. Comprehensive studies on the effect of land use on intraspecific variation are lacking, as well as on the epigenetic variation in wild populations of non-model plants. Furthermore, studies on land use and intraspecific variation often focused on agriculturally interesting traits, with less attention to ecologically relevant plant traits. In this thesis, I aimed to narrow these gaps by asking: (i) How much intraspecific genetic, epigenetic, and phenotypic variation is there within (diversity) and among (differentiation) wild plant populations? (ii) How is genetic, epigenetic, and phenotypic variation related to each other? (iii) What is their relationship to environmental factors, especially to land use intensity? (iv) Are there trade-offs or positive correlations between functional traits relevant in grasslands? We worked with Plantago lanceolata, a very common grassland plant, and took advantage of the network of standardised study plots with detailed land-use information across Germany, that is hosted by the Biodiversity Exploratories research platform. We found that: (i) There is substantial epigenetic, genetic and phenotypic variation in P. lanceolata, mostly as within-population diversity, but still showing significant differentiation among populations. (ii) There was no detectable relationship between the three levels of intraspecific variation studied. (iii) Increasing mowing intensity decreases epigenetic and phenotypic diversity, and the opposite is true for their relationship to grazing intensity; while genetic variation was unrelated to land use. (iv) Nutrient pulse response and clipping tolerance in P. lanceolata are negatively correlated, probably representing a physiological trade-off, while a positive correlation between competitive ability and clipping tolerance was most likely present because they confer benefits in the same environments. Altogether, these results show that rapid evolution associated with land use has taken place in P. lanceolata, even if this species is wind-pollinated and strictly outcrossing, which results in high levels of gene-flow and much unstructured variation. This also means that there is plenty of “raw material” for future evolution in this system, as well as the potential for finding stronger associations between these three levels of intraspecific variation and environmental variables in other species. Extending this kind of research, with more high-resolution genomic and epigenomic methods would certainly contribute to our understanding of rapid evolution in human-influenced ecosystems.
Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)
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(2016) Phenotypic plasticity of Plantago lanceolata in relation to land use. 46th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland (GfÖ), Marburg, Germany
Gaspar B, Parepa M, Bossdorf O
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(2016) Variation in global DNA methylation of two grassland plant species in the Biodiversity Exploratories. 29th Annual meeting of the Plant Population Biology Section of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland (GfÖ), Trebon, Czech Republic
Gaspar B, Durka W, Bossdorf O
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(2017) Ecological plant epigenetics: evidence from model and non-model species, and the way forward. Ecology Letters 20: 1567-1590
Richards CL, Alonso C, Becker C, Bossdorf O, Bucher E, Colomé-Tatché M, Durka W, Engelhardt J, Gáspár B, … [+15 more authors] … Verhoeven KJF
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(2017) Natural epigenetic diversity in the common grassland plant Plantago lanceolata. 30th Annual Meeting of the Plant Population Biology Section of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland (GfÖ), Halle, Germany
Gaspar B, Durka D, Bossdorf O
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(2017) Natural epigenetic diversity in the common grassland plant Plantago lanceolata. 40th New Phytologist symposium ”Plant epigenetics: from mechanisms to ecological relevance”, Vienna, Austria
Gaspar B, Durka W, Bossdorf O
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(2017) Natural epigenetic diversity in the common grassland plant Plantago lanceolata. Meeting StEvE, Tübingen
Gaspar B, Durka W, Bossdorf O
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(2018) Integrating large-scale genetic, epigenetic and phenotypic data from natural populations of Plantago lanceolata to understand the influence of land use on intraspecific diversity and adaptation. II Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology, Montpellier, France
Gaspar B, Durka W, Bossdorf O
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(2018) Trade-offs between growth strategies in managed grasslands: within-species variation in Plantago lanceolata. 31th Annual Meeting of the Plant Population Biology, Section of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland (GfÖ), Innsbruck, Austria
Gaspar B, Parepa M, Bossdorf O
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(2019) Structure, stability and ecological significance of natural epigenetic variation: a large-scale survey in Plantago lanceolata. New Phytologist 221: 1585-1596
Gáspár B, Bossdorf O, Durka W
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(2020) Intraspecific variation in land use-related functional traits in Plantago lanceolata. bioRxiv
Gáspár B, Bossdorf O, Parepa M
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(2020) Rapid evolution in managed grasslands: different land-use regimes are associated with contrasting phenotypes in Plantago lanceolata. bioRxiv
Gáspár B, Durka W, Bossdorf O
