AVE - adaptive genetic variation and plant adaptation to environmental heterogenity

Arabis alpina Foto: Alex Bösch, WSL

Cardaminopsis halleri Foto: Alex Bösch, WSL

Cardamine residifolia Foto: Alex Bösch, WSL

With this SNF-supported SINERGIA project, we investigate adaptation to environmental heterogeneity from an ecological, landscape genetic and functional genomic perspective. Environmental heterogeneity is pronounced in alpine areas, where conditions often change over small geographic distances as a consequence of differences in altitude, exposition, bedrock, snow cover or water availability. We study adaptive genetic variation in the model plant species Arabidopsis thaliana and five related Brassicaceae species (Arabis alpina, Arabis ciliata, Cardaminopsis halleri, Cardamine hirsuta, Cardamine resedifolia) with contrasting mating systems, life histories or altitudinal distributions. We assess natural genetic variation at 500 loci in multiple populations collected in landscapes with high environmental heterogeneity. This comparative approach is supported by the application of high throughput sequencing technology, which allows for genome-wide analyses of multiple species.

The overarching questions that we address are:
(1) What is the genetic basis of adaptation to environmental heterogeneity?
(2) Do the same loci contribute to adaptation in related species?
(3) What is the adaptive value of candidate genes?

With respect to these questions, we hypothesize that
(4) major genes contribute substantially to adaptation;
(5) the same genes (or gene families) are involved in adaptation to the same environmental factor in different species;
(6) some of the identified candidate genes cause above-average fitness in their native environment, but below-average fitness in other environments.

• Felix Gugerli Künzle
  

• Rolf Holderegger