Ecological genomics of plant adaptation

生物学的主要目标之一是描述在多个组织层面上理解适应性进化：从涉及的基因、它们的表达和它们影响的特征，到产生自然选择的生态力量，以及这如何在气候和季节性变化的地理景观中表现出来。应对这一挑战的一个有希望的领域是在拟南芥植物向开花的过渡阶段。该物种与加拿大重要的农作物油菜籽属于同一科，具有几个优势：基因组模式生物的资源可以用于实验生态学研究。 拟南芥已经入侵北美，并显示出快速、适应性进化的证据。然而，这种进化的遗传机制和导致这种进化的生态力量仍有待证实。我将调查入侵范围(北美)中出现的开花时间的斜生植物是否实际上是适应的结果，以及可能创造这些模式的遗传和生态机制。结合遗传作图、基因表达研究和操纵性生态学实验，我们将能够全面调查入侵后的快速进化。我的具体目标是：(1)确定入侵后适应的生态机制，(2)利用下一代测序技术快速定位适应的遗传基础，(3)评估表达变异对适应的贡献，以及(4)在田间考察确认的开花时间基因的微观进化。 这项拟议的工作将支持在迅速扩大的生态和进化基因组学领域培训几名HQP，并提高我们对开花时间、植物繁殖和入侵物种遗传学的知识，因为它评估了分子遗传和环境变异在塑造复杂性状中的作用。这一结果可能对理解物种对生物入侵和气候变化的适应性反应具有重要意义。

One of biology's major goals is to describe understand adaptive evolution on multiple levels of organization: from the genes involved, their expression, and the traits they affect upto the ecological forces that produces natural selection, and how this is manifested in a geographic landscape where climate and seasonality vary. One promising area to address this challenge is in the transition to flowering in the plant, Arabidopsis thaliana. This species, which is in the same family as the important Canadian crop plant canola, has several advantages: the resources of a genomic model organism can be leveraged with studies of experimental ecology. Arabidopsis thaliana has invaded North America, and appears to show evidence of rapid, adaptive evolution. However, the genetic mechanisms of this evolution and the ecological forces leading to it remain to be confirmed. I will investigate whether clines in flowering time seen in the invaded range (North America) are in fact the result of adaptation, and the genetic and ecological mechanisms that might have created these patterns. Combining genetic mapping, gene expression studies, and manipulative ecological experiments, we will allow a comprehensive investigation of rapid evolution after invasion. My specific aims are to: (1) Confirm the ecological mechanisms of adaptation after invasion, (2) Use next generation sequencing technology to rapidly map the genetic basis of adaptation, (3) Evaluate the contribution of expression variation to adaptation, and (4) Examine the microevolution, in the field, of confirmed flowering time genes that interact epistatically. The proposed work will support training several HQP in the rapidly expanding areas of ecological and evolutionary genomics, and advance our knowledge of flowering time, plant reproduction, and the genetics of invasive species because it evaluates the roles of molecular genetic and environmental variation in shaping complex traits. The results are likely to be of great importance in understanding adaptive responses of species to biological invasion and climate change.