Plasticity, pleiotropy and fitness trade‐offs in Arabidopsis genotypes with different telomere lengths

Summary Telomere length has been implicated in the organismal response to stress, but the underlying mechanisms are unknown. Here we examine the impact of telomere length changes on the responses to three contrasting abiotic environments in Arabidopsis, and measure 32 fitness, developmental, physiol...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The New phytologist 2022-02, Vol.233 (4), p.1939-1952
Main Authors: Campitelli, Brandon E., Razzaque, Samsad, Barbero, Borja, Abdulkina, Liliia R., Hall, Mitchell H., Shippen, Dorothy E., Juenger, Thomas E., Shakirov, Eugene V.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abiotic factors
Arabidopsis
Arabidopsis thaliana
environment
Fitness
Flowering
flowering time
Genetic Fitness
Genotype
Genotypes
Growth conditions
Leaves
Mutants
Natural selection
Physiological effects
Physiology
plants
Pleiotropy
Reproductive fitness
seeds
Selection, Genetic
stress
Telomere - genetics
telomere dynamics
Telomeres
tert
Yeast
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Summary:Summary Telomere length has been implicated in the organismal response to stress, but the underlying mechanisms are unknown. Here we examine the impact of telomere length changes on the responses to three contrasting abiotic environments in Arabidopsis, and measure 32 fitness, developmental, physiological and leaf‐level anatomical traits. We report that telomere length in wild‐type and short‐telomere mutants is resistant to abiotic stress, while the elongated telomeres in ku70 mutants are more plastic. We detected significant pleiotropic effects of telomere length on flowering time and key leaf physiological and anatomical traits. Furthermore, our data reveal a significant genotype by environment (G × E) interaction for reproductive fitness, with the benefits and costs to performance depending on the growth conditions. These results imply that life‐history trade‐offs between flowering time and reproductive fitness are impacted by telomere length variation. We postulate that telomere length in plants is subject to natural selection imposed by different environments.
ISSN:0028-646X
1469-8137
DOI:10.1111/nph.17880