Global warming and thermal stress tolerance: assessing the physiological and genetic basis through direct transcriptome sequencing

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Prolonged summer heat waves associated with global warming impose increasing stress on coastal communities of temperate European waters that have already resulted in population declines of marine macrophytes. Populations of macroalgae and seagrasses may change their distribution, respond through plasticity, or go extinct. Whether or not local populations possess sufficient genetic variability to survive in the face of global warming through rapid microevolution is currently unknown. The core idea of the proposed project is to experimentally expose replicated genotypes of a `keystone¿ plant, Zostera marina (eelgrass) from several locations differing in thermal regime to summer temperature stress simulating global warming. Fitness related traits (survival, growth, reproduction) are combined with a quantification of transcription levels of a suite of candidate genes that mediate the stress response using real-time polymerase chain reaction. An assessment of additive genetic variance in both, stress gene induction and plant fitness will allow predictions on the potential for microevolution present in local temperate populations; and on the potential of genetic rescue by southern, presumable warm-adapted genotypes. Such studies also serve as starting point for causally relating plant stress tolerance to gene expression polymorphism in the face of global warming.