The relationship between neutral and adaptive genetic diversity in the context of historic and present land use and landscape structure - GENLAND

土地利用强烈地影响着植物的种群结构和进化潜力，并通过影响中性过程和数量性状来影响植物的遗传多样性。稀有植物比普通植物遭受更多的遗传漂变，这可能会影响中性和适应性变异。除了遗传过程外，表观遗传变异可能影响表型变异，但在自然群体中很少被表征。本后续项目采用几种方法探讨这些问题。首先，我们将测试土地利用是否影响植物物种的遗传多样性不同，取决于物种的丰富度，通过确定中性标记和数量性状的稀有物种的遗传多样性和种群结构的共同物种的补充，包括在项目的第一阶段。在这里，我们也采取了历史的角度来确定历史和现在的土地利用的作用。其次，我们比较中性和数量的植物遗传变异，以确定土地利用是否影响选择性中性过程不同的适应过程。此外，我们使用基因组扫描的方法，以确定AFLP标记，马铃薯已受到自然选择。第三，我们将量化表观遗传变异与中性和定量遗传变异并行。虽然表观遗传变异对生态学和微进化的潜力已被证明，但在自然环境中对非模式物种的相对作用的评估在很大程度上缺乏。因此，我们评估了不同层次水平的甲基化多态性。总的来说，该项目将允许测试目前和历史上的土地使用对物种丰度方面的中性和适应性遗传和表观遗传多样性的作用。

Land use strongly affects population structure and evolutionary potential of plants and can influence plant genetic diversity by affecting neutral processes as well as quantitative traits. Rare plants are expected to suffer more from genetic drift than common plants, which may affect both neutral and adaptive variation. In addition to genetic process, epigenetic variation may affect phenotypic variation, but has rarely been characterized in natural populations. This follow-up project explores these issues using several approaches. Firstly, we will test whether land use influences genetic diversity of plant species differently depending on species’ abundance by determining genetic diversity and population structure both of neutral markers and quantitative traits of rare species complementary to the common species included in the first phase of the project. Here we also take a historical perspective to determine the role of historic and present land use. Secondly, we compare neutral and quantitative genetic variation in plants to determine whether land use affects selectively neutral processes differently compared to adaptive processes. Moreover, we use a genome scan approach to identify AFLP markers that putatively have been subject to natural selection. Thirdly, we will quantify epigenetic variation in parallel to neutral and quantitative genetic variation. While the potential of epigenetic variation for ecology and microevolution has been proven, the assessment of its relative role in non model species in natural settings is largely lacking. Therefore, we assess methylation polymorphisms across hierarchical levels. Overall, the project will allow testing the role of present and historic land use on neutral and adaptive genetic and epigenetic diversity with regard to species’ abundance.