Massive haplotypes underlie ecotypic differentiation in sunflowers

Marco Todesco, Gregory L. Owens, Natalia Bercovich (), Jean-Sébastien Légaré, Shaghayegh Soudi, Dylan O. Burge, Kaichi Huang, Katherine L. Ostevik, Emily B. M. Drummond, Ivana Imerovski, Kathryn Lande, Mariana A. Pascual-Robles, Mihir Nanavati, Mojtaba Jahani, Winnie Cheung, S. Evan Staton, Stéphane Muños, Rasmus Nielsen, Lisa A. Donovan, John M. Burke, Sam Yeaman and Loren H. Rieseberg ()
Additional contact information
Marco Todesco: University of British Columbia
Gregory L. Owens: University of British Columbia
Natalia Bercovich: University of British Columbia
Jean-Sébastien Légaré: University of British Columbia
Shaghayegh Soudi: University of Calgary
Dylan O. Burge: University of British Columbia
Kaichi Huang: University of British Columbia
Katherine L. Ostevik: Duke University
Emily B. M. Drummond: University of British Columbia
Ivana Imerovski: University of British Columbia
Kathryn Lande: University of British Columbia
Mariana A. Pascual-Robles: University of British Columbia
Mihir Nanavati: University of British Columbia
Mojtaba Jahani: University of British Columbia
Winnie Cheung: University of British Columbia
S. Evan Staton: University of British Columbia
Stéphane Muños: LIPM, Université de Toulouse, INRAE, CNRS
Rasmus Nielsen: University of California, Berkeley
Lisa A. Donovan: University of Georgia
John M. Burke: University of Georgia
Sam Yeaman: University of Calgary
Loren H. Rieseberg: University of British Columbia

Nature, 2020, vol. 584, issue 7822, 602-607

Abstract: Abstract Species often include multiple ecotypes that are adapted to different environments1. However, it is unclear how ecotypes arise and how their distinctive combinations of adaptive alleles are maintained despite hybridization with non-adapted populations2–4. Here, by resequencing 1,506 wild sunflowers from 3 species (Helianthus annuus, Helianthus petiolaris and Helianthus argophyllus), we identify 37 large (1–100 Mbp in size), non-recombining haplotype blocks that are associated with numerous ecologically relevant traits, as well as soil and climate characteristics. Limited recombination in these haplotype blocks keeps adaptive alleles together, and these regions differentiate sunflower ecotypes. For example, haplotype blocks control a 77-day difference in flowering between ecotypes of the silverleaf sunflower H. argophyllus (probably through deletion of a homologue of FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT)), and are associated with seed size, flowering time and soil fertility in dune-adapted sunflowers. These haplotypes are highly divergent, frequently associated with structural variants and often appear to represent introgressions from other—possibly now-extinct—congeners. These results highlight a pervasive role of structural variation in ecotypic adaptation.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2467-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:584:y:2020:i:7822:d:10.1038_s41586-020-2467-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2467-6

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().