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A latitudinal cline in flowering time in Arabidopsis thaliana modulated by the flowering time gene FRIGIDA - PubMed

  • ️Thu Jan 01 2004

A latitudinal cline in flowering time in Arabidopsis thaliana modulated by the flowering time gene FRIGIDA

John R Stinchcombe et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004.

Abstract

A latitudinal cline in flowering time in accessions of Arabidopsis thaliana has been widely predicted because the environmental cues that promote flowering vary systematically with latitude, but evidence for such clines has been lacking. Here, we report evidence of a significant latitudinal cline in flowering time among 70 Northern European and Mediterranean ecotypes when grown under ecologically realistic conditions in a common garden environment. The detected cline, however, is found only in ecotypes with alleles of the flowering time gene FRIGIDA (FRI) that lack major deletions that would disrupt protein function, whereas there is no relationship between flowering time and latitude of origin among accessions with FRI alleles containing such deletions. Analysis of climatological data suggests that late flowering in accessions with putatively functional FRI was associated with reduced January precipitation at the site of origin, consistent with previous reports of a positive genetic correlation between water use efficiency and flowering time in Arabidopsis, and the pleiotropic effects of FRI of increasing water use efficiency. In accessions collected from Southern latitudes, we detected that putatively functional FRI alleles were associated with accelerated flowering relative to accessions with nonfunctional FRI under the winter conditions of our experiment. These results suggest that the ecological function of the vernalization requirement conferred by FRI differs across latitudes. More generally, our results indicate that by combining ecological and molecular genetic data, it is possible to understand the forces acting on life history transitions at the level of specific loci.

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Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.

Structure of the FRI gene showing the location, size, and frequency of the three assayed deletions.

Fig. 2.
Fig. 2.

The relationship between latitude of origin and mean days until bolting for 70 ecotypes grown in a common garden in Rhode Island. (A) Data portrayed for all ecotypes regardless of FRI. (B) Data for all ecotypes, broken down by FRI class. Open circles indicate nonfunctional FRI, and solid circles indicate putatively functional FRI. The regression for the putatively functional FRI class, shown with the solid line, is significant, whereas the regression for the nonfunctional FRI class is not significant. The slopes of the two lines are significantly different, based on analysis of covariance and permutation testing.

Fig. 3.
Fig. 3.

The effect of putatively functional and nonfunctional FRI on mean days until bolting (common garden) or mean days until flowering (growth chamber), portrayed separately for ecotypes from Northern latitudes (>50.3 N) (A) and Southern latitudes (<50.3 N) (B). Filled bars portray data for ecotypes with putatively functional FRI alleles, and open bars portray data ecotypes with nonfunctional alleles. Means and standard errors are indicated (standard errors are sometimes very small and hard to distinguish) for three growing conditions (LD = LDs in growth chamber, SD = SDs in growth chamber, and Common Garden in Rhode Island). * indicates significant difference between FRI classes based on t test.

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