Starting from scratch: adaptation to variable environments after an extreme bottleneck

• Applicants: Dr. Barbara Neuffer; Professor Dr. Magnus Nordborg; Professor Dr. Detlef Weigel, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Plant Physiology ; Plant Genetics and Genomics
• Term: from 2011 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 197753132

While new species are usually formed through a gradual evolutionary process, they can also arise almost instantaneously, through events that involve genetic bottlenecking and dramatic loss of variability. Despite a very narrow genetic basis, such species can be remarkably successful. An important question is therefore how they manage to diversify and adapt to new habitats. This proposal addresses this problem by studying two young plant species that underwent such bottlenecks: Arabidopsis suecica is in the same genus as the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana and originated as an interspecific hybrid between A. thaliana and A. arenosa. Capsella rubella, which belongs to a genus that is closely related to Arabidopsis, arose as a self-fertilizing form of an outcrossing ancestor, C. grandiflora. Both species are only a few thousands or ten thousands of years old. We will continue in the second phase of the SPP to elucidate the patterns of variability in these species, at the levels of the genome, epigenome and transcriptome, and to contrast these patterns with those in the ancestral species. In addition, we will investigate colonizing populations of C. bursa-pastoris, to determine how new genetic diversity can be established in the course of only a few hundred years.

• DFG Programme: Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1529: Evolutionary Plant Solutions to Ecological Challenges: Molecular Mechanisms Underlying Adaptive Traits in the Brassicaceae s.l. (Adaptomics)
• International Connection: Austria