10.5061/DRYAD.HS26B
Wilschut, Rutger A.
Nederlands Instituut voor Ecologie
Oplaat, Carla
Nederlands Instituut voor Ecologie
Snoek, L. Basten
Wageningen University & Research
Nederlands Instituut voor Ecologie
Kirschner, Jan
Nederlands Instituut voor Ecologie
Verhoeven, Koen J. F.
Nederlands Instituut voor Ecologie
Data from: Natural epigenetic variation contributes to heritable flowering
divergence in a widespread asexual dandelion lineage
Dryad
dataset
2015
Plant Mating Systems
Epigenetics
Taraxacum officinale
Contemporary Evolution
2015-11-26T02:33:26Z
2015-11-26T02:33:26Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.13502
36520 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Epigenetic variation has been proposed to contribute to the success of
asexual plants, either as a contributor to phenotypic plasticity or by
enabling transient adaptation via selection on transgenerationally stable,
but reversible, epialleles. While recent studies in experimental plant
populations have shown the potential for epigenetic mechanisms to
contribute to adaptive phenotypes, it remains unknown whether heritable
variation in ecologically relevant traits is at least partially
epigenetically determined in natural populations. Here, we tested the
hypothesis that DNA methylation variation contributes to heritable
differences in flowering time within a single widespread apomictic clonal
lineage of the common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale s. lat.). Apomictic
clone members of the same apomictic lineage collected from different field
sites showed heritable differences in flowering time, which was correlated
with inherited differences in methylation-sensitive AFLP marker profiles.
Differences in flowering between apomictic clone members were
significantly reduced after in vivo demethylation using the DNA
methyltransferase inhibitor zebularine. This synchronization of flowering
times suggests that flowering time divergence within an apomictic lineage
was mediated by differences in DNA methylation. While the underlying basis
of the methylation polymorphism at functional flowering time-affecting
loci remains to be demonstrated, our study shows that epigenetic variation
contributes to heritable phenotypic divergence in ecologically relevant
traits in natural plant populations. This result also suggests that
epigenetic mechanisms can facilitate adaptive divergence within
genetically uniform asexual lineages.
Flowering time, microsatellite and MS-AFLP data from apomictic
dandelionApomictic clone members from common dandelion microspecies
Taraxacum officinale 'Alatum' screened under common greenhouse
environments for variation in microsatellites, methylation-sensitive AFLPs
and flowering time.data_wilschut_et_al.xlsx
Europe