亲体效应在种群和群落水平的作用及其表观遗传机制

亲体效应(母体效应)及其表观遗传机制是当前生态学研究的前沿热点领域。尽管植物亲体效应早在1909年就被报导，但有关植物亲体效应的研究绝大多数是在个体水平开展的，关注的是亲体效应对后代个体环境适应性的影响，而亲体效应在种群和群落水平的作用及其表观遗传机制尚不清楚。本项目将以典型克隆植物如香菇草(Hydrocytle vugaris)及其共存的本地植物为对象，结合野外调查、控制实验和表观遗传分析，研究亲体效应介导的后代表型差异对植物种内和种间关系的影响，亲体效应介导的后代表型多样性对种群和群落结构和生产力的影响，野外种群表观遗传变异与种群和群落特征之间的关系，以及DNA甲基化对亲体效应在种群和群落水平作用的影响，揭示亲体效应在种群和群落水平的作用及其表观遗传机制。研究成果将可极大地推动我国生态表观遗传学和克隆植物生态学的发展，并进一步丰富植物种群生态学和群落生态学的理论和方法

Parental effects (maternal effects) and their epigenetic mechanisms are hot frontiers of current ecological research. While parental effects in plants has been reported since 1909, the majority of studies on parental effects have focused on their roles at individual level, evaluating only the impacts of parental effects on adaptiveness of individuals to environments. Roles of parental effects at population or community levels and their epigenetic mechanisms are still unclear. In this project, we will use a clonal plant such as Hydrocytle vugaris and its coexisting native plants as our study systems and combine field survey, controlled experiments and epigenetic analysis to examine the impact of offspring phenotypic differences mediated by parental effects on intraspecific and interspecific interactions of plants, the impact of offspring phenotypic diversity mediated by parent effects on the structure and productivity of both plant populations and communities, relationships of epigenetic variation of natural plant populations with characteristics of the populations and communities, and impacts of DNA methylation on the roles of parental effects at population and communities levels. We aim to reveal the roles of parental effects at both population and community levels and their underlying epigenetic mechanisms. The outcome of this project is expected to advance our understanding on ecological epigenetics and clonal plant ecology and to further enrich the theories of plant population ecology and community ecology.