Abstract
Flowering time in Arabidopsis thaliana is controlled by a large number of genes and various environmental factors, such as light and temperature. The objective of this study was to identify flowering time quantitative trait loci (QTL) under growth conditions simulating seasonal conditions from native geographic locations. Our growth chambers were set to simulate the spring conditions in Spain and Sweden, with appropriate changes in light color, intensity and day length, as well as temperature and relative humidity. Thus the Sweden-like spring conditions changed more dramatically compared to Spain-like spring conditions across the duration of our experiment. We have used these conditions to map QTL responsible for flowering time in the Kas-1/Col-gl1 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) across two replicate blocks. A linkage map from 96 RILs was established using 119 markers including 64 new SNPs markers. One major QTL, mapping to the FRIGIDA (FRI) locus, was detected on the top of chromosome 4 that showed significant gene×seasonal environment interactions. Three other minor QTL also were detected. One QTL mapping near FLOWERING LOCUS M (FLM) showed an epistatic interaction with the QTL at FRI. These QTL×environment and QTL×QTL interactions suggest that subtle ecologically relevant changes in light, temperature, and relative humidity are differentially felt by alleles controlling flowering time and may be responsible for adaptation to regional environments.
Highlights
Flowering time is a critical step in the life of annual species such as Arabidopsis thaliana
Longer days act via the photoperiod pathway and an extended period of winter-like temperature act via the vernalization pathway to accelerate flowering time by releasing repression caused by the floral inhibitor Flowering Locus C (FLC)
Segregation distortions of markers have been seen in other A. thaliana recombinant inbred lines (RILs) populations [13,22,23]
Summary
Flowering time is a critical step in the life of annual species such as Arabidopsis thaliana. Many genes controlling flowering time have been identified (see the flowering web http://www.salk.edu/LABS/pbio-w/flower_web.html and reviews by [4,5,6,7]), and a genetic network has been outlined which includes four main pathways: photoperiod, vernalization, autonomous, and gibberellin [8]. Longer days act via the photoperiod pathway and an extended period of winter-like temperature act via the vernalization pathway to accelerate flowering time by releasing repression caused by the floral inhibitor Flowering Locus C (FLC). Functional alleles of another gene, FRIGIDA (FRI), promote the accumulation of FLC mRNA, which delays flowering. The Col allele at FLM delays flowering compared to the null flm, including the natural null allele in the Nd accession [11]
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