| 1. |
- Müller, Niels A., et al.
(författare)
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A single gene underlies the dynamic evolution of poplar sex determination.
- 2020
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Ingår i: Nature Plants. - : Springer Nature. - 2055-0278 .- 2055-026X. ; 6:6, s. 630-637
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Although hundreds of plant lineages have independently evolved dioecy (that is, separation of the sexes), the underlying genetic basis remains largely elusive. Here we show that diverse poplar species carry partial duplicates of the ARABIDOPSIS RESPONSE REGULATOR 17 (ARR17) orthologue in the male-specific region of the Y chromosome. These duplicates give rise to small RNAs apparently causing male-specific DNA methylation and silencing of the ARR17 gene. CRISPR–Cas9-induced mutations demonstrate that ARR17 functions as a sex switch, triggering female development when on and male development when off. Despite repeated turnover events, including a transition from the XY system to a ZW system, the sex-specific regulation of ARR17 is conserved across the poplar genus and probably beyond. Our data reveal how a single-gene-based mechanism of dioecy can enable highly dynamic sex-linked regions and contribute to maintaining recombination and integrity of sex chromosomes.
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| 2. |
- Bernhardsson, Carolina, 1982-
(författare)
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Molecular population genetics of inducible defense genes in Populus tremula
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Plant-herbivore interactions are among the most common of ecological interactions. It is therefore not surprising that plants have evolved multiple mechanisms to defend themselves, using both constitutive chemical and physical barriers and by induced responses which are only expressed after herbivory has occurred. Herbivores, on the other hand, respond to these plant defenses by evolving counter-adaptations which makes defenses less effective or even useless. Adaptation can occur at different geographical scales, with varying coevolutionary interactions across a spatially heterogenous landscape. By looking at the underlying genes responsible for these defensive traits and herbivore related phenotypic traits, it is possible to investigate the coevolutionary history of these plant- herbivore interactions. Here I use molecular population genetic tools to investigate the evolutionary history of several inducible defense genes in European Aspen (Populus tremula) in Sweden. Two genes, belonging to the Polyphenol oxidase gene-family (PPO1 and PPO2), show skews in their site frequency spectrum together with patterns of diversity and divergence from an outgroup which correspond to signatures of adaptive evolution (Paper II). 71 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from seven inducible defense genes (PPO1-PPO3, TI2-TI5) show elevated levels of population differentiation compared to control genes (genes not involved in plant defense), and 10 of these defense SNPs show strong signatures of natural selection (Paper III). These 71 defense SNPs also divides a sample of Swedish P. tremula trees into three distinct geographical groups, corresponding to a Southern, Central and Northern cluster, a patterns that is not present in control SNPs (Paper III). The same geographical pattern, with a distinct Northern cluster, is also observed in several phenotypic traits related to herbivory in our common garden in Sävar (Paper IV). These phenotypic traits show patterns of apparent local maladaptation of the herbivore community to the host population which could indicate the presence of “information coevolution” between plants and herbivores (Paper IV). 15 unique defense SNPs also show significant associations to eight phenotypic traits but the causal effects of these SNP associations may be confounded by the geographic structure found in both the underlying genes and in the phenotypic traits. The co-occurrence of population structure in both defense genes and herbivore community traits may be the result from historical events during the post-glacial recolonization of Sweden.
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| 3. |
- Bernhardsson, Carolina, et al.
(författare)
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Population differentiation in arthropod community structure and phenotypic association with inducible defense genes in European Aspen (Populus tremula L., salicaceae)
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Plant-herbivore interactions are known to vary across a landscape due to both variation in abiotic and biotic factors. Such spatial variation tends to promoting local adaption of plants to the prevailing herbivore regime. Here we use data from a common garden to look for patterns across populations in the abundance and diversity of herbivorous insects. We also screen for variation in the untargeted metabolome of the foliage of a subset of the same trees. We also search for phenotypic associations between genetic variation in a number of wound-induced genes and phenotypic variation in herbivore abundance, diversity and in metabolomes. We observe significant genetic variation in a number of herbivore-related traits but low correlations between traits. We do observe substantial genetic structure in both herbivore community structure and in metabolic profiles and this structure is aligned with genetic structure we have previously documented for a set of defense genes. We also identify a number of significant associations between SNPs from wound-induced defense genes and a number of the herbivore traits and metabolic profiles. However, these associations are likely not causal, but are rather caused by the underlying population structure we observe. These results highlight to the importance of historical processes and the need to better understand both the current-day geographic distribution of different herbivore species as well as the post-glacial colonization history of both plants and herbivores.
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| 4. |
- Wang, Xi, 1990-, et al.
(författare)
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Demography and Natural Selection Have Shaped Genetic Variation in the Widely Distributed Conifer Norway Spruce (Picea abies)
- 2020
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Ingår i: Genome Biology and Evolution. - : Oxford University Press. - 1759-6653. ; 12:2, s. 3803-3817
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Under the neutral theory, species with larger effective population size are expected to harbor higher genetic diversity. However, across a wide variety of organisms, the range of genetic diversity is orders of magnitude more narrow than the range of effective population size. This observation has become known as Lewontin's paradox and although aspects of this phenomenon have been extensively studied, the underlying causes for the paradox remain unclear. Norway spruce (Picea abies) is a widely distributed conifer species across the northern hemisphere, and it consequently plays a major role in European forestry. Here, we use whole-genome resequencing data from 35 individuals to perform population genomic analyses in P. abies in an effort to understand what drives genome-wide patterns of variation in this species. Despite having a very wide geographic distribution and an corresponding enormous current population size, our analyses find that genetic diversity of P. abies is low across a number of populations (pi = 0.0049 in Central-Europe, pi = 0.0063 in Sweden-Norway, pi = 0.0063 in Finland). To assess the reasons for the low levels of genetic diversity, we infer the demographic history of the species and find that it is characterized by several reoccurring bottlenecks with concomitant decreases in effective population size can, at least partly, provide an explanation for low polymorphism we observe in P. abies. Further analyses suggest that recurrent natural selection, both purifying and positive selection, can also contribute to the loss of genetic diversity in Norway spruce by reducing genetic diversity at linked sites. Finally, the overall low mutation rates seen in conifers can also help explain the low genetic diversity maintained in Norway spruce.
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| 5. |
- Alves, Isabel, et al.
(författare)
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Human genetic structure in Northwest France provides new insights into West European historical demography
- 2024
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Ingår i: Nature Communications. - : Springer Nature. - 2041-1723. ; 15
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The demographical history of France remains largely understudied despite its central role toward understanding modern population structure across Western Europe. Here, by exploring publicly available Europe-wide genotype datasets together with the genomes of 3234 present-day and six newly sequenced medieval individuals from Northern France, we found extensive fine-scale population structure across Brittany and the downstream Loire basin and increased population differentiation between the northern and southern sides of the river Loire, associated with higher proportions of steppe vs. Neolithic-related ancestry. We also found increased allele sharing between individuals from Western Brittany and those associated with the Bell Beaker complex. Our results emphasise the need for investigating local populations to better understand the distribution of rare (putatively deleterious) variants across space and the importance of common genetic legacy in understanding the sharing of disease-related alleles between Brittany and people from western Britain and Ireland.
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| 6. |
- Barker, Hilary L., et al.
(författare)
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Linking plant genes to insect communities : Identifying the genetic bases of plant traits and community composition
- 2019
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Ingår i: Molecular Ecology. - : John Wiley & Sons. - 0962-1083 .- 1365-294X. ; 28:19, s. 4404-4421
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Community genetics aims to understand the effects of intraspecific genetic variation on community composition and diversity, thereby connecting community ecology with evolutionary biology. Thus far, research has shown that plant genetics can underlie variation in the composition of associated communities (e.g., insects, lichen and endophytes), and those communities can therefore be considered as extended phenotypes. This work, however, has been conducted primarily at the plant genotype level and has not identified the key underlying genes. To address this gap, we used genome‐wide association mapping with a population of 445 aspen (Populus tremuloides) genets to identify the genes governing variation in plant traits (defence chemistry, bud phenology, leaf morphology, growth) and insect community composition. We found 49 significant SNP associations in 13 Populus genes that are correlated with chemical defence compounds and insect community traits. Most notably, we identified an early nodulin‐like protein that was associated with insect community diversity and the abundance of interacting foundation species (ants and aphids). These findings support the concept that particular plant traits are the mechanistic link between plant genes and the composition of associated insect communities. In putting the “genes” into “genes to ecosystems ecology”, this work enhances understanding of the molecular genetic mechanisms that underlie plant–insect associations and the consequences thereof for the structure of ecological communities.
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| 7. |
- Bernhardsson, Carolina, et al.
(författare)
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An Ultra-Dense Haploid Genetic Map for Evaluating the Highly Fragmented Genome Assembly of Norway Spruce (Picea abies)
- 2019
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Ingår i: G3. - : Genetics Society of America. - 2160-1836. ; 9:5, s. 1623-1632
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) is a conifer species of substanital economic and ecological importance. In common with most conifers, the P. abies genome is very large (similar to 20 Gbp) and contains a high fraction of repetitive DNA. The current P. abies genome assembly (v1.0) covers approximately 60% of the total genome size but is highly fragmented, consisting of >10 million scaffolds. The genome annotation contains 66,632 gene models that are at least partially validated (), however, the fragmented nature of the assembly means that there is currently little information available on how these genes are physically distributed over the 12 P. abies chromosomes. By creating an ultra-dense genetic linkage map, we anchored and ordered scaffolds into linkage groups, which complements the fine-scale information available in assembly contigs. Our ultra-dense haploid consensus genetic map consists of 21,056 markers derived from 14,336 scaffolds that contain 17,079 gene models (25.6% of the validated gene models) that we have anchored to the 12 linkage groups. We used data from three independent component maps, as well as comparisons with previously published Picea maps to evaluate the accuracy and marker ordering of the linkage groups. We demonstrate that approximately 3.8% of the anchored scaffolds and 1.6% of the gene models covered by the consensus map have likely assembly errors as they contain genetic markers that map to different regions within or between linkage groups. We further evaluate the utility of the genetic map for the conifer research community by using an independent data set of unrelated individuals to assess genome-wide variation in genetic diversity using the genomic regions anchored to linkage groups. The results show that our map is sufficiently dense to enable detailed evolutionary analyses across the P. abies genome.
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| 8. |
- Bernhardsson, Carolina, et al.
(författare)
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Geographic structure and adaptive population differentiation in herbivore defence genes in European aspen (Populus tremula L., Salicaceae)
- 2012
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Ingår i: Molecular Ecology. - : Blackwell Publishing. - 0962-1083 .- 1365-294X. ; 21:9, s. 2197-2207
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- When a phenotypic trait is subjected to spatially variable selection and local adaptation, the underlying genes controlling the trait are also expected to show strong patterns of genetic differentiation since alternative alleles are favored in different geographical locations. Here we study 71 SNPs from seven genes associated with inducible defense responses in a sample of P. tremula collected from across Sweden. Four of these genes (PPO2, TI2, TI4 and TI5) show substantial population differentiation and a PCA conducted on the defense SNPs divides the Swedish population into three distinct clusters. Several defense SNPs show latitudinal clines, although these were not robust to multiple testing. However, five SNPs (located within TI4 and TI5) show strong longitudinal clines that remain significant after multiple test correction. Genetic geographical variation, supporting local adaptation, has earlier been confirmed in genes involved in the photoperiod pathway in P. tremula, but this is, to our knowledge, one of the first times that geographic variation has been found in genes involved in plant defense against antagonists.
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| 9. |
- Bernhardsson, Carolina, et al.
(författare)
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Variant Calling Using Whole Genome Resequencing and Sequence Capture for Population and Evolutionary Genomic Inferences in Norway Spruce (Picea Abies)
- 2020
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Ingår i: The Spruce Genome. - Switzerland : Springer Nature. - 9783030210014 - 9783030210007 ; , s. 9-36
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Advances in next-generation sequencing methods and the development of new statistical and computational methods have opened up possibilities for large-scale, high-quality genotyping in most organisms. Conifer genomes are large and are known to contain a high fraction of repetitive elements and this complex genome structure has bearings for approaches that aim to use next-generation sequencing methods for genotyping. In this chapter, we provide a detailed description of a workflow for variant calling using next-generation sequencing in Norway spruce (Picea abies). The workflow starts with raw sequencing reads and proceeds through read mapping to variant calling and variant filtering. We illustrate the pipeline using data derived from both whole-genome resequencing data and reduced representation sequencing. We highlight possible problems and pitfalls of using next-generation sequencing data for genotyping stemming from the complex genome structure of conifers and how those issues can be mitigated or eliminated.
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| 10. |
- Niiranen, Laura, et al.
(författare)
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Epigenomic Modifications in Modern and Ancient Genomes
- 2022
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Ingår i: Genes. - : MDPI. - 2073-4425. ; 13:2
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Epigenetic changes have been identified as amajor driver of fundamentalmetabolic pathways. More specifically, the importance of epigenetic regulatory mechanisms for biological processes like speciation and embryogenesis has beenwell documented and revealed the direct link between epigenetic modifications and various diseases. In this review, we focus on epigenetic changes in animals with special attention on human DNA methylation utilizing ancient and modern genomes. Acknowledging the latest developments in ancient DNA research, we further discuss paleoepigenomic approaches as the only means to infer epigenetic changes in the past. Investigating genome-wide methylation patterns of ancient humans may ultimately yield in a more comprehensive understanding of how our ancestors have adapted to the changing environment, and modified their lifestyles accordingly. We discuss the difficulties of working with ancient DNA in particular utilizing paleoepigenomic approaches, and assess new paleoepigenomic data, which might be helpful in future studies.
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