Century-long timelines of herbarium genomes predict plant stomatal response to climate change
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Dissecting plant responses to the environment is key to understanding whether and how plants adapt to anthropogenic climate change. Stomata, plants’ pores for gas exchange, are expected to decrease in density following increased CO 2 concentrations, a trend already observed in multiple plant species. However, it is unclear whether such responses are based on genetic changes and evolutionary adaptation. Here we make use of extensive knowledge of 43 genes in the stomatal development pathway and newly generated genome information of 191 Arabidopsis thaliana historical herbarium specimens collected over 193 years to directly link genetic variation with climate change. While we find that the essential transcription factors SPCH, MUTE and FAMA, central to stomatal development, are under strong evolutionary constraints, several regulators of stomatal development show signs of local adaptation in contemporary samples from different geographic regions. We then develop a functional score based on known effects of gene knock-out on stomatal development that recovers a classic pattern of stomatal density decrease over the past centuries, suggesting a genetic component contributing to this change. This approach combining historical genomics with functional experimental knowledge could allow further investigations of how different, even in historical samples unmeasurable, cellular plant phenotypes may have already responded to climate change through adaptive evolution.
Source: Nature Ecology & Evolution
Institutions: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, Pennsylvania State University, California State University, San Bernardino, Stanford Medicine, Max Planck Institute for Biology, University College London, Carnegie Institution for Science, Carnegie Department of Plant Biology
Language: English
Subfield: Plant Science
Domain: Life Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $12,290
Funders: National Science Foundation, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Stanford University, Carnegie Institution of Washington, University of California Berkeley, Carnegie Institution for Science, Leverhulme Trust, Royal Society, Human Frontier Science Program, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, Biological and Environmental Research
Awards: G1227731744, G1725009932, G1929278627, INTERROGATING PENNYCRESS NATURAL AND INDUCED VARIATION TO IMPROVE ABIOTIC STRESS TOLERANCE AND OILSEED BIOENERGY CROP RESILIENCE, Predicting and controlling polygenic health traits using probabilistic models and evolution-inspired gene editing, G2911450482, G3964729837, Cellular and Molecular Biology Training Program, G4379400830, G4512108538, G464042561, Evolutionary genetics of genotype-by-environment interactions for complex traits, Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP), Genetics and Developmental Biology Training Program, G5507216389, G6085737290, G6661425536, BRC-BIO: Using analysis of historical and contemporary samples to elucidate mechanisms of altitudinal range expansion by plants, G737943723, G7757824392, G9000120195, G9000163673, G9000164921, G9000254618, G966556108
OpenAlex ID: W4401428875