On the post-glacial spread of human commensal Arabidopsis thaliana

Recent work has shown that Arabidopsis thaliana contains genetic groups originating from different ice age refugia, with one particular group comprising over 95% of the current worldwide population. In Europe, relicts of other groups can be found in local populations along the Mediterranean Sea. Her...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2017-02, Vol.8 (1), p.14458-14458, Article 14458
Main Authors: Lee, Cheng-Ruei, Svardal, Hannes, Farlow, Ashley, Exposito-Alonso, Moises, Ding, Wei, Novikova, Polina, Alonso-Blanco, Carlos, Weigel, Detlef, Nordborg, Magnus
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/158/2464
631/181/457
631/449/1870
Adaptation
Adaptation, Physiological - genetics
Arabidopsis - genetics
Arabidopsis - physiology
Base Pairing - genetics
Biology
Chromosomes, Plant - genetics
Flowers - physiology
Gene Ontology
Genome, Plant
Genomes
Geography
Haplotypes - genetics
Hominids
Humanities and Social Sciences
Humans
Hybridization
Hybridization, Genetic
Ice ages
Ice Cover
multidisciplinary
Polymorphism
Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide - genetics
Population
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
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Summary:Recent work has shown that Arabidopsis thaliana contains genetic groups originating from different ice age refugia, with one particular group comprising over 95% of the current worldwide population. In Europe, relicts of other groups can be found in local populations along the Mediterranean Sea. Here we provide evidence that these ‘relicts’ occupied post-glacial Eurasia first and were later replaced by the invading ‘non-relicts’, which expanded through the east–west axis of Eurasia, leaving traces of admixture in the north and south of the species range. The non-relict expansion was likely associated with human activity and led to a demographic replacement similar to what occurred in humans. Introgressed genomic regions from relicts are associated with flowering time and enriched for genes associated with environmental conditions, such as root cap development or metal ion trans-membrane transport, which suggest that admixture with locally adapted relicts helped the non-relicts colonize new habitats. Population structure of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana is shaped by glacial refugia and recent admixture. Here the authors show that genetically distinct groups of A. thaliana have spread east-west across Europe since the most recent ice age, likely as a result of human activity.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/ncomms14458