HEИндивидуална стипендия2022–2024

StrucRadiation · The role of structural variation in adaptive radiation

„Хоризонт Европа“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2022-08-15 → 2024-08-14
Финансиране от ЕС: 183 601 €
Участници: 1
Схема: HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF

Линиите свързват координатора с партньорите.

Накратко на български

Транспозируемите елементи в генома на растенията от род Diospyros се изследват, за да се разбере как те помагат за адаптацията към различни почви в Нова Каледония. Това помага да се разберат механизмите на биоразнообразието и начинът, по който видовете реагират на променящия се климат.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

The role of structural variation in adaptive radiation

Understanding how organisms adapt to changing environments is crucial for unravelling the mechanisms that drive biodiversity, a task that is becoming ever more pressing as species must respond to the challenges of a rapidly changing climate. An emerging factor in understanding adaptive evolution is the role of transposable elements (TEs) - selfish genetic elements which move and multiply throughout the host genome. While traditionally thought to be wholly harmful to the host, recent evidence from across the tree of life is beginning to suggest that TEs can represent an important driver of adaptive variation through their modification and modulation of host genetic pathways. However the stochastic and unpredictable nature of TEs proliferation makes it difficult to directly link their activity to adaptive traits. To investigate the potential role of TEs in the emergence of adaptive traits, StrucRadiation focused on a New Caledonian clade of the persimmon genus Diospyros. Diospyros colonised New Caledonia, a remote Pacific archipelago, roughly ten million years ago, undergoing a rapid burst of speciation to form an adaptive radiation of 30 ecologically diverse species. These species now inhabit nearly all habitat types found in New Caledonia. The unique geological history of New Caledonia has resulted in a variety of soil types, including fertile volcanic soil, calcium rich calcareous soil and nutritionally challenging serpentine and ultramafic soils. These soils, distributed in patches across the island, create a heterogeneous landscape of contrasting edaphic selection pressures. Serpentine and ultramafic soils, which are characterised by low nutrient availability, imbalanced mineral content and high concentrations of heavy metals, pose significant challenges for plant survival and growth. Interestingly, adaptation to these difficult soil types has evolved multiple times across the New Caledonian Diospyros adaptive radiation, with closely related species often exhibiting contrasting edaphic preferences. Notably, species within this Diospyros New Caledonian radiation show a marked increase in TE proliferation compared to their closest relatives. The repeated adaptation in this clade of Diospyros to challenging and heterogeneously distributed ultramafic and serpentine soils on New Caledonia present an excellent opportunity to test the role of TEs in adaptive evolution. The aim of StrucRadiation is to investigate the potential association of TEs with ecologically relevant genes, focussing on genes related to adaptation to ultramafic and serpentine soils. By focusing on these soil-related adaptations, StrucRadiation aimed to shed light on how TEs may facilitate rapid evolution in response to environmental pressures, despite decreased starting levels of genetic variation.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз

Цел на проекта

Long distance dispersal and adaptive radiation events have produced some of the most species rich ecosystems in the world. While colonizing lineages can adapt to new environments, the selective processes by which they do so is unclear given the paucity of genetic diversity in founder populations. Recent interest in the evolutionary role of transposable elements suggests they may contribute in generating genetic diversity through structural variation, doing so faster than the rate of background mutation. Despite research to date, evidence for exact mechanisms of transposable element mediated adaptive evolution is sparse. To address this, I propose to study a radiating clade of Diospyros (Ebenaceae) species on New Caledonia, a biodiversity hotspot. Following a long distance dispersal event, ca 30 species form an adaptive radiation and have larger genome sizes than congeners that arrived independently on the archipelago. Previous work has suggested that the divergence within the radiating lineage was driven largely by edaphic specialisation occurring independently multiple times. Here, I plan to investigate whether genes involved in adaptation to soil type are associated with structural variants, and whether these variants are mediated by transposable element activity. I will use three pairs of sister species, each of which is adapted to either fertile volcanic or poor ultramafic soils, enabling me to test for repeated patterns of adaptive evolution. This action will shed light on the potentially crucial but poorly understood contribution of transposable elements to adaptation, speciation, and biodiversity. Moreover, this work will provide understanding of the adaptive limits of different lineages in the face of ecological upheavals, relevant in the present context of environmental challenges.

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

UNIVERSITAT WIEN · WienКоординаторАвстрия