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Originally published in Science Express on 15 January 2009
Science 13 February 2009:
Vol. 323. no. 5916, pp. 930 - 934
DOI: 10.1126/science.1165826
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Reports

Effects of Genetic Perturbation on Seasonal Life History Plasticity

Amity M. Wilczek,1 Judith L. Roe,2 Mary C. Knapp,2 Martha D. Cooper,1 Cristina Lopez-Gallego,1* Laura J. Martin,1{dagger} Christopher D. Muir,1{ddagger} Sheina Sim,2§ Alexis Walker,1 Jillian Anderson,1 J. Franklin Egan,1|| Brook T. Moyers,1 Renee Petipas,1# Antonis Giakountis,3 Erika Charbit,2 George Coupland,3 Stephen M. Welch,2 Johanna Schmitt1**

Like many species, the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana exhibits multiple different life histories in natural environments. We grew mutants impaired in different signaling pathways in field experiments across the species' native European range in order to dissect the mechanisms underlying this variation. Unexpectedly, mutational loss at loci implicated in the cold requirement for flowering had little effect on life history except in late-summer cohorts. A genetically informed photothermal model of progression toward flowering explained most of the observed variation and predicted an abrupt transition from autumn flowering to spring flowering in late-summer germinants. Environmental signals control the timing of this transition, creating a critical window of acute sensitivity to genetic and climatic change that may be common for seasonally regulated life history traits.

1 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA.
2 Department of Agronomy, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA.
3 Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne D-50829, Germany.

* Present address: Biology Institute, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellin AA 1226, Colombia.

{dagger} Present address: Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.

{ddagger} Present address: Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.

§ Present address: Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.

|| Present address: Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA.

Present address: Department of Botany, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4, Canada.

# Present address: Department of Biology, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405, USA.

** To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: johanna_schmitt{at}brown.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Cis-regulatory Changes at FLOWERING LOCUS T Mediate Natural Variation in Flowering Responses of Arabidopsis thaliana.
C. Schwartz, S. Balasubramanian, N. Warthmann, T. P. Michael, J. Lempe, S. Sureshkumar, Y. Kobayashi, J. N. Maloof, J. O. Borevitz, J. Chory, et al. (2009)
Genetics 183, 723-732
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Major flowering time gene, FLOWERING LOCUS C, regulates seed germination in Arabidopsis thaliana.
G. C. K. Chiang, D. Barua, E. M. Kramer, R. M. Amasino, and K. Donohue (2009)
PNAS 106, 11661-11666
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What Has Natural Variation Taught Us about Plant Development, Physiology, and Adaptation?.
C. Alonso-Blanco, M. G.M. Aarts, L. Bentsink, J. J.B. Keurentjes, M. Reymond, D. Vreugdenhil, and M. Koornneef (2009)
PLANT CELL 21, 1877-1896
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