REU: Parental Effects in Plantago lanceolata

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Many empirical studies demonstrate that parents can influence offspring appearance (phenotype) beyond the effects of nuclear chromosomes that parents contribute to offspring. For example, ecological and genetic studies have shown that the physical environment in which the parents are grown can affect offspring growth and reproduction. Likewise independent of environment, parents can transmit extra-nuclear DNA to offspring; this DNA can also influence growth and reproduction. Lacey's study will further characterize these parental effects (defined as these non-nuclear contributions that parents make to offspring phenotype), and also provide information about the role of these effects in natural and artificial selection. The research will focus on the effects of parental flowering time on offspring phenotype in Plantago lanceolata, an herbaceous weed of agricultural fields and other disturbed habitat. Flowering time effects will be examined directly. Also, because flowering time effects are probably mediated through temperature change during flowing and seed maturation, Lacey will examine how temperature affects offspring phenotype. Genetically different parents will be cloned and then grown and crossed under different combinations of temperatures and at different flowering times outdoors. Offspring of the crosses will then be grown and traits measured. The traits that will be measured determine an individual's fitness in a natural or evolutionary context and yield in an agricultural context. Because yield will be measured, the research will provide information that will be useful to crop breeders. Maximizing yield (a goal of crop breeders) necessitates knowing whether flowering time and temperature in one generation influence yield in the next and, if they do, what yield components are affected. For example; if parental flowering time, which is partially genetically controlled, is found to influence offspring yield, then breeders should be able to improve yield in a generation of commercial importance by altering flowering time or temperature in the previous generation. Lacey's project will provide information about the potential use of parental effects in crop breeding programs.