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Mutualism abandonment in land plants and the origin of novel adaptations

Descripción del proyecto

Pérdida de mutualismo en plantas terrestres y adaptaciones genéticas

Los cambios ambientales repentinos pueden provocar la pérdida de rasgos esenciales, pero también pueden crear oportunidades para que surjan nuevas adaptaciones. Aún no está claro si la pérdida de rasgos se ve contrarrestada por el desarrollo de nuevas adaptaciones, o si pueden observarse resultados similares en distintos grupos de organismos. El mutualismo de plantas terrestres con microorganismos edáficos ya aparece en los ancestros de estas. En ocasiones, la pérdida de este mutualismo se asocia a nuevas estrategias de adquisición de recursos. Sin embargo, algunos linajes de plantas se han diversificado enormemente a lo largo del tiempo. En el proyecto SYMBIOLOSS, financiado por las acciones Marie Skłodowska-Curie, se pretende investigar la pérdida repetida del mutualismo en las plantas terrestres y examinar si esta pérdida ha dado lugar a cambios genéticos adaptativos que la compensen.

Objetivo

Evolutionary outcomes are constrained by lineage history. Episodes of drastic shifts in selection, as in cases of radical environmental change, often lead to the loss of traits that were once essential. While the loss of such traits may narrow niche breadth, it also creates opportunities for adaptive innovations. Whether trait losses are compensated by novel adaptations, and the extent to which similar outcomes evolved independently in unrelated lineages is largely unknown. In this project, I will investigate this problem by capitalizing on the recurrent loss of mutualism in land plants. Mutualism with soil microorganisms is ancestral in land plants, and provides plants with facilitated access to nutrients. Instances of secondary loss of mutualism are often linked to novel resource acquisition strategies, such as carnivory or parasitism. Some lineages, however, including vascular and non-vascular plants, have not undergone drastic niche shifts, and yet have largely diversified across the ecological space over time after losing mutualism. In this project, I will use comparative genomics and experimental approaches to test the hypothesis that mutualism abandonment was associated with adaptive genetic changes that compensated for the loss of mutualism. To determine whether the loss of mutualism operated as a source of selection on functions formerly facilitated by the mutualistic association, I will identify gene family expansions and genomic signatures of adaptive evolution that preceded and followed mutualism abandonment. I will then experimentally test this hypothesis in a comparative framework using closely related mutualists and non-mutualists of the liverwort genus Marchantia in conditions expected to differentially affect fitness according to mutualism status. This work will determine how novel adaptations evolve following the loss of a widely conserved trait, and reveal the extent to which similar outcomes originate in lineages with widely different histories.

Ámbito científico (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS clasifica los proyectos con EuroSciVoc, una taxonomía plurilingüe de ámbitos científicos, mediante un proceso semiautomático basado en técnicas de procesamiento del lenguaje natural.

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Coordinador

UNIVERSITE PAUL SABATIER TOULOUSE III
Aportación neta de la UEn
€ 211 754,88
Dirección
ROUTE DE NARBONNE 118
31062 Toulouse Cedex 9
Francia

Ver en el mapa

Región
Occitanie Midi-Pyrénées Haute-Garonne
Tipo de actividad
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Enlaces
Coste total
Sin datos