Genomics of adaptation in aquatic flowering plants Potamogeton

• Applicant: Polina Novikova, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Evolution and Systematics of Plants and Fungi ; Plant Genetics and Genomics ; Ecology and Biodiversity of Plants and Ecosystems
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 497665889

Aquatic plants (algae and macrophytes) are critical components of marine and freshwater ecosystems, providing food sources and habitats for many species. Macrophytes have acquired special adaptations to live in water, as they have evolved multiple times in terrestrial plant clades. Despite their significance and potential to reveal the genomic basis of adaptation to life under water, aquatic flowering plants remain vastly understudied from a biosystematics and genomics perspective. This dearth of research is especially prominent for freshwater macrophytes, as saltwater seagrasses have recently caught the eye of plant geneticists. In this project, we aim to describe the evolutionary history and the genomics of adaptation to freshwater in the aquatic flowering plant genus Potamogeton. This will facilitate not only an opportunity for comparing the genomics of freshwater adaptation to adaptation in saltwater seagrasses, but also permit studies of plant genome evolution after a whole-genome duplication or polyploidization. About half of Potamogeton species are polyploids with a shared origin, which makes this system uniquely attractive to study the role of polyploidization in evolution and speciation. Investigating lineage-specific genomic changes in Potamogeton species we will describe the genetic basis of the speciation burst after the whole-genome duplication event and the effects of the lineage-specific environments on such genomic changes. When investigating the core genome of the Potamogeton genus, which stays intact regardless of the species, and comparing it to seagrass genomes, we will be able to describe specific freshwater and saltwater adaptations in plants.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Alison Scott, Ph.D.