scholarly journals Linking plant genes to insect communities: Identifying the genetic bases of plant traits and community composition

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (19) ◽  
pp. 4404-4421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilary L. Barker ◽  
Jennifer F. Riehl ◽  
Carolina Bernhardsson ◽  
Kennedy F. Rubert‐Nason ◽  
Liza M. Holeski ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Community Composition ◽  
Plant Traits ◽  
Insect Communities ◽  
Plant Genes ◽  
Genetic Bases

scholarly journals Plant community composition but not plant traits determine the outcome of soil legacy effects on plants and insects

2017 ◽  
Vol 106 (3) ◽  
pp. 1217-1229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Heinen ◽  
Martijn van der Sluijs ◽  
Arjen Biere ◽  
Jeffrey A. Harvey ◽  
T. Martijn Bezemer
Keyword(s):  
Community Composition ◽  
Plant Community ◽  
Plant Traits ◽  
Plant Community Composition ◽  
Legacy Effects ◽  
Soil Legacy

scholarly journals Resistance and Not Plant Fruit Traits Determine Root-Associated Bacterial Community Composition along a Domestication Gradient in Tomato

Plants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Lisanne Smulders ◽  
Victoria Ferrero ◽  
Eduardo de la Peña ◽  
María J. Pozo ◽  
Juan Antonio Díaz Pendón ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bacterial Community ◽  
Community Composition ◽  
Plant Resistance ◽  
Bacterial Communities ◽  
Species Interactions ◽  
Plant Traits ◽  
Bacterial Community Composition ◽  
Agricultural Practices ◽  
Fruit Traits ◽  
Resistance Traits

Soil bacterial communities are involved in multiple ecosystem services, key in determining plant productivity. Crop domestication and intensive agricultural practices often disrupt species interactions with unknown consequences for rhizosphere microbiomes. This study evaluates whether variation in plant traits along a domestication gradient determines the composition of root-associated bacterial communities; and whether these changes are related to targeted plant traits (e.g., fruit traits) or are side effects of less-often-targeted traits (e.g., resistance) during crop breeding. For this purpose, 18 tomato varieties (wild and modern species) differing in fruit and resistance traits were grown in a field experiment, and their root-associated bacterial communities were characterised. Root-associated bacterial community composition was influenced by plant resistance traits and genotype relatedness. When only considering domesticated tomatoes, the effect of resistance on bacterial OTU composition increases, while the effect due to phylogenetic relatedness decreases. Furthermore, bacterial diversity positively correlated with plant resistance traits. These results suggest that resistance traits not selected during domestication are related to the capacity of tomato varieties to associate with different bacterial groups. Taken together, these results evidence the relationship between plant traits and bacterial communities, pointing out the potential of breeding to affect plant microbiomes.

The successional pathway of the tree community and how it shapes the fruit-feeding butterfly community in an Afrotropical forest

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anu Valtonen ◽  
Geoffrey M. Malinga ◽  
Margaret Nyafwono ◽  
Philip Nyeko ◽  
Arthur Owiny ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Community Composition ◽  
Vegetation Structure ◽  
Butterfly Species ◽  
Secondary Forests ◽  
Forest Age ◽  
Insect Communities ◽  
Tree Community ◽  
Local Topography ◽  
Butterfly Community

Abstract:The relative importance of different bottom-up-mediated effects in shaping insect communities in tropical secondary forests are poorly understood. Here, we explore the roles of vegetation structure, forest age, local topography (valley vs. hill top) and soil variables in predicting fruit-feeding butterfly and tree community composition, and tree community composition in predicting fruit-feeding butterfly community composition, in different-aged naturally regenerating and primary forests of Kibale National Park, Uganda. We also examine which variables are best predictors of fruit-feeding butterfly species richness or diversity. Butterflies (88 species) were sampled with a banana-baited trap and trees (98 taxa) with a 40 × 20-m sampling plot at 80 sampling sites. The environmental variables explained 31% of the variation in the tree community composition, the best predictors being local topography, forest age and cover of Acanthus pubescens (a shrub possibly arresting succession). The fruit-feeding butterfly community composition was better predicted by tree community composition (explaining 10% of the variation) rather than vegetation structure, local topography or soil factors. Environmental variables and tree species richness (or diversity) were poor predictors of butterfly species richness (or diversity). Our results emphasize the importance of tree community to recovery of herbivorous insect communities in tropical secondary forests.

scholarly journals Intraspecific trait variability shapes leaf trait response to altered fire regimes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel M Mitchell ◽  
Greg M Ames ◽  
Justin P Wright
Keyword(s):  
Species Composition ◽  
Community Composition ◽  
Functional Traits ◽  
Plant Traits ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Pinus Palustris ◽  
Fire Frequency ◽  
Fire Intensity ◽  
Dry Matter Content ◽  
Disturbance Regimes

Abstract Background and Aims Understanding impacts of altered disturbance regimes on community structure and function is a key goal for community ecology. Functional traits link species composition to ecosystem functioning. Changes in the distribution of functional traits at community scales in response to disturbance can be driven not only by shifts in species composition, but also by shifts in intraspecific trait values. Understanding the relative importance of these two processes has important implications for predicting community responses to altered disturbance regimes. Methods We experimentally manipulated fire return intervals in replicated blocks of a fire-adapted, longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) ecosystem in North Carolina, USA and measured specific leaf area (SLA), leaf dry matter content (LDMC) and compositional responses along a lowland to upland gradient over a 4 year period. Plots were burned between zero and four times. Using a trait-based approach, we simulate hypothetical scenarios which allow species presence, abundance or trait values to vary over time and compare these with observed traits to understand the relative contributions of each of these three processes to observed trait patterns at the study site. We addressed the following questions. (1) How do changes in the fire regime affect community composition, structure and community-level trait responses? (2) Are these effects consistent across a gradient of fire intensity? (3) What are the relative contributions of species turnover, changes in abundance and changes in intraspecific trait values to observed changes in community-weighted mean (CWM) traits in response to altered fire regime? Key Results We found strong evidence that altered fire return interval impacted understorey plant communities. The number of fires a plot experienced significantly affected the magnitude of its compositional change and shifted the ecotone boundary separating shrub-dominated lowland areas from grass-dominated upland areas, with suppression sites (0 burns) experiencing an upland shift and annual burn sites a lowland shift. We found significant effects of burn regimes on the CWM of SLA, and that observed shifts in both SLA and LDMC were driven primarily by intraspecific changes in trait values. Conclusions In a fire-adapted ecosystem, increased fire frequency altered community composition and structure of the ecosystem through changes in the position of the shrub line. We also found that plant traits responded directionally to increased fire frequency, with SLA decreasing in response to fire frequency across the environmental gradient. For both SLA and LDMC, nearly all of the observed changes in CWM traits were driven by intraspecific variation.

scholarly journals Establishing insect community composition using metabarcoding of soil samples, and preservative ethanol and homogenate from Malaise trap catches: surprising inconsistencies between methods

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Marquina ◽  
Rodrigo Esparza-Salas ◽  
Tomas Roslin ◽  
Fredrik Ronquist
Keyword(s):  
Community Composition ◽  
Sampling Methods ◽  
Soil Samples ◽  
Malaise Trap ◽  
Insect Community ◽  
Insect Communities ◽  
Target Dna ◽  
Dna Metabarcoding ◽  
Alternative Approaches ◽  
Trap Catches

AbstractDNA metabarcoding allows the analysis of insect communities faster and more efficiently than ever before. However, metabarcoding can be conducted through several alternative approaches, and the consistency of results across methods has rarely been studied. We compare the results obtained by DNA metabarcoding of the same communities using two different markers – COI and 16S – and three different sampling methods – homogenized Malaise trap samples (homogenate), preservative ethanol from the same samples, and soil samples. Our results indicate that COI and 16S offer partly complementary information on Malaise trap samples, with each marker detecting a significant number of species not detected by the other. Different sampling methods offer highly divergent estimates of community composition. The community recovered from preservative ethanol of Malaise trap samples is quite distinct from that recovered from homogenate. Small and weakly sclerotized insects tend to be overrepresented in ethanol, with some exceptions that could be related to taxon-specific traits. For soil samples, highly degenerate COI primers pick up large amounts of non-target DNA and only 16S provides adequate analyses of insect diversity. However, even with 16S, very little overlap in MOTU content was found between the trap and the soil samples. Our results demonstrate that no metabarcoding approach is all-comprehensive in itself. For instance, DNA extraction from preservative ethanol is not a valid replacement for destructive bulk extraction but a complement. In future metabarcoding studies, both should ideally be used together to achieve comprehensive representation of the target community.

scholarly journals Synthetic directed evolution in plants: unlocking trait engineering and improvement

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gundra Sivakrishna Rao ◽  
Wenjun Jiang ◽  
Magdy Mahfouz
Keyword(s):  
Directed Evolution ◽  
Selection Pressure ◽  
Gene Sequence ◽  
Plant Traits ◽  
Crop Species ◽  
Base Editing ◽  
Selection Strategies ◽  
Diverse Species ◽  
Plant Genes ◽  
T7 Polymerase

Abstract Genetic variation accelerates adaptation and resilience and enables the survival of species in their changing environment. Increasing the genetic diversity of crop species is essential to improve their yield and enhance food security. Synthetic directed evolution (SDE) employs localized sequence diversification (LSD) of gene sequence and selection pressure to evolve gene variants with better fitness, improved properties and desired phenotypes. Recently, CRISPR–Cas-dependent and -independent technologies have been applied for LSD to mediate synthetic evolution in diverse species, including plants. SDE holds excellent promise to discover, accelerate and expand the range of traits of the value in crop species. Here, we highlight the efficient SDE approaches for the LSD of plant genes, selection strategies and critical traits for targeted improvement. We discuss the potential of emerging technologies, including CRISPR–Cas base editing, retron editing, EvolvR and prime editing, to establish efficient SDE in plants. Moreover, we cover CRISPR–Cas-independent technologies, including T7 polymerase editor for continuous evolution. We highlight the key challenges and potential solutions of applying SDE technologies to improve the plant traits of the value.

scholarly journals Plant trichomes and a single gene GLABRA1 contribute to insect community composition on field-grown Arabidopsis thaliana

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yasuhiro Sato ◽  
Rie Shimizu-Inatsugi ◽  
Misako Yamazaki ◽  
Kentaro K. Shimizu ◽  
Atsushi J. Nagano
Keyword(s):  
Arabidopsis Thaliana ◽  
Community Composition ◽  
Natural Variation ◽  
Single Gene ◽  
Insect Community ◽  
Loss Of Function ◽  
Insect Communities ◽  
As Species ◽  
Distant Field ◽  
Diverse Plant

AbstractBackground: Genetic variation in plants alters insect abundance and community structure in the field; however, little is known about the importance of a single gene among diverse plant genotypes. In this context, Arabidopsis trichomes provide an excellent system to discern the roles of natural variation and a key gene, GLABRA1, in shaping insect communities. In this study, we transplanted two independent glabrous mutants (gl1-1 and gl1-2) and 17 natural accessions of Arabidopsis thaliana to two localities in Switzerland and Japan.Results: Fifteen insect species inhabited plant accessions, with 10–30% broad-sense heritability of community indices being detected, such as species richness and diversity. The total abundance of leaf-chewing herbivores was negatively correlated with trichome density at both the field sites, while glucosinolates had variable effects on leaf chewers between the two sites. Interestingly, there was a parallel tendency for the abundance of leaf chewers to be higher on gl1-1 and gl1-2 than for their different parental accessions, Ler-1 and Col-0, respectively. Furthermore, the loss of function in the GLABRA1 gene significantly decreased the resistance of plants to the two predominant chewers, flea beetles and turnip sawflies.Conclusions: Overall, our results indicate that insect community composition on A. thaliana is heritable across two distant field sites, with GLABRA1 playing a key role in altering the abundance of leaf-chewing herbivores. Given that such a trichome variation is widely observed in Brassicaceae plants, the present study exemplifies the community-wide impact of a single plant gene on crucifer-feeding insects in the field.

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