{"title":"Continuous genetic adaptation to high elevations of alpine bamboos in the Hengduan Mountains, Southwest China","authors":"Li-Ying Luo, Gui-Hua Jin, Peng-Fei Ma, De-Zhu Li","doi":"10.1111/jse.13038","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Many examples of phenotypic modifications resulting from high-elevation adaptation have been documented, however, the underlying processes responsible for these modifications and whether the continuity of the adaptation process remain elusive, particularly in plants. The alpine plants distributed along wide elevational gradients provide an ideal system to address this question. Here, we collected transcriptomes from multiple tissues of three species with different elevations (~1500, ~2500, and ~3600 m in the Hengduan Mountains, Southwest China) in two genera <i>Fargesia</i> and <i>Yushania</i> of alpine bamboos, respectively, and conducted evolutionary and expressional analyses. Results showed that high-elevation adaptation emerged earlier in the evolutionary history of both genera and evolved continuously as the elevation increased. Moreover, convergence of genetic changes was observed in the two genera, with amounts of candidate genes responsible for high-elevation adaptation identified under positive selection. Overall, our study provides an empirical example and valuable genetic resource for further investigation of high-elevation adaptation in plants and sheds new light on how plants adapting to high-elevation environments in a biodiversity hotspot.","PeriodicalId":17087,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Systematics and Evolution","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.7000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Systematics and Evolution","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/jse.13038","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"Agricultural and Biological Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Many examples of phenotypic modifications resulting from high-elevation adaptation have been documented, however, the underlying processes responsible for these modifications and whether the continuity of the adaptation process remain elusive, particularly in plants. The alpine plants distributed along wide elevational gradients provide an ideal system to address this question. Here, we collected transcriptomes from multiple tissues of three species with different elevations (~1500, ~2500, and ~3600 m in the Hengduan Mountains, Southwest China) in two genera Fargesia and Yushania of alpine bamboos, respectively, and conducted evolutionary and expressional analyses. Results showed that high-elevation adaptation emerged earlier in the evolutionary history of both genera and evolved continuously as the elevation increased. Moreover, convergence of genetic changes was observed in the two genera, with amounts of candidate genes responsible for high-elevation adaptation identified under positive selection. Overall, our study provides an empirical example and valuable genetic resource for further investigation of high-elevation adaptation in plants and sheds new light on how plants adapting to high-elevation environments in a biodiversity hotspot.
期刊介绍:
Journal of Systematics and Evolution (JSE, since 2008; formerly Acta Phytotaxonomica Sinica) is a plant-based international journal newly dedicated to the description and understanding of the biological diversity. It covers: description of new taxa, monographic revision, phylogenetics, molecular evolution and genome evolution, evolutionary developmental biology, evolutionary ecology, population biology, conservation biology, biogeography, paleobiology, evolutionary theories, and related subjects.