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Title *

Assortment of flowering time and defense alleles in natural Arabidopsis thaliana populations suggests co-evolution between defense and vegetative lifespan strategiesuse asterix (*) to get italics

Authors *

Glander S, He F, Schmitz G, Witten A, Telschow A, de Meaux JPlease use the format "First name initials family name" as in "Marie S. Curie, Niels H. D. Bohr, Albert Einstein, John R. R. Tolkien, Donna T. Strickland"

Year *

2017

Picture *

Abstract *

The selective impact of pathogen epidemics on host defenses can be strong but remains transient. By contrast, life-history shifts can durably and continuously modify the balance between costs and benefits of immunity, which arbitrates the evolution of host defenses. Their impact, however, has seldom been documented. Here, we show with a simple mathematical model how the optimal investment into defense is expected to increase with increasing lifespan. We further document that in natural populations of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, the expression levels of defense genes correlate positively with flowering time, a proxy for the length of lifespan. Using a novel genetic strategy based on bulk segregants, we partitioned lifespan dependent from lifespan independent defense genes and could demonstrate that this positive covariation can be genetically separated. It is therefore not explained by the pleiotropic action of some major regulatory genes controlling both defense and lifespan. Moreover, we find that defense genes containing variants reported to impact fitness in natural field conditions are among the genes whose expression covaries most strongly with flowering time. In agreement with our model, this study reveals that natural selection has likely assorted alleles promoting higher expression of defense genes with alleles that increase the duration of vegetative lifespan in A. thaliana and vice versa. This is the first study documenting the pervasive impact of life history variation on the maintenance of diversity in host immunity within species.

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Keywords (optional)

Co-evolution, Defense, Flowering time, Lifespan, Arabidopsis thaliana, Transcriptomics, Trade-off, Pleiotropy, Bulk-segregant sequencing

Methods that require specific expertise (optional)

NonePlease indicate the methods that may require specialised expertise during the peer review process (use a comma to separate various required expertises).

Thematic fields *

Adaptation, Evolutionary Ecology, Expression Studies, Life History, Phenotypic Plasticity, Quantitative Genetics, Species interactions

Suggested reviewers - Suggest up to 10 reviewers (provide names and Email addresses). (Optional)

e.g. John Doe john@doe.com

No need for them to be recommenders of PCIEvolBiol. Please do not suggest reviewers for whom there might be a conflict of interest. Reviewers are not allowed to review preprints written by close colleagues (with whom they have published in the last four years, with whom they have received joint funding in the last four years, or with whom they are currently writing a manuscript, or submitting a grant proposal), or by family members, friends, or anyone for whom bias might affect the nature of the review - see the code of conduct

Opposed reviewers - Suggest up to 5 people not to invite as reviewers. (Optional)

e.g. John Doe john@doe.com

Submission date

2017-06-21 10:57:14

Recommender

Xavier Picó

Reviewers

Sophie Karrenberg, Rafa Rubio de Casas, Xavier Picó

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