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Natural environments require organisms to possess robust mechanisms allowing responses to seasonal trends. In Arabidopsis halleri, the flowering regulator AhgFLC shows upregulation and downregulation phases along with long-term past temperature, but the underlying machinery remains elusive. Here, we investigate the seasonal dynamics of histone modifications, H3K27me3 and H3K4me3, at AhgFLC in a natural population. Our advanced modelling and transplant experiments reveal that H3K27me3-mediated chromatin regulation at AhgFLC provides two essential properties. One is the ability to respond to the long-term temperature trends via bidirectional interactions between H3K27me3 and H3K4me3; the other is the ratchet-like character of the AhgFLC system, i.e. reversible in the entire perennial life cycle but irreversible during the upregulation phase. Furthermore, we show that the long-term temperature trends are locally indexed at AhgFLC in the form of histone modifications. Our study provides a more comprehensive understanding of H3K27me3 function at AhgFLC in a complex natural environment.

Seasonal developmental plasticity, which consists of season-dependent alternations of developmental processes, has evolved to produce optimal phenotypes depending on specific periods in a year. For example, many phenological events in plants, such as flowering, fruiting, bud blast, bud formation, and growth cessation, are often controlled seasonally. Although temperature and photoperiod are the two major seasonal cues for such responses, the importance of phase lag between annual oscillations of the two signals has been unexplored, despite its universal nature in the context of seasonal environments. In this article, the phase-lag calendar hypothesis (New Phytologist, 210, 2016, 399), especially the one between temperature and photoperiod, is explained using meteorological data obtained from central Japan as an example. We set forth to show how, for a narrow window in time of a couple of weeks in a year, simple threshold responses to these two signals that differ in annual oscillation phases are enough to make developmental plasticity to be expressed as phenological events. The properties of the underlying mechanisms of the events in different seasons are further predicted, and the responses are compared with reported empirical examples. Because many organisms have evolved under the phase lag between photoperiod and temperature, the developmental plasticity in response to the phase lag should be evaluated for diverse organisms., (© 2018 Japanese Society of Developmental Biologists.)

Synchronisation of flowering phenology has often been observed between individuals within plant species. We expected that a critical role of flowering-time control under natural conditions is a phenological synchronisation. However, no studies have quantified the level of synchronisation of reproductive timing relative to germination timing under natural conditions. In a sequential seeding experiment (SSE) in which we manipulated the germination timing of Arabidopsis thaliana accessions, we developed a quantification index to evaluate reproductive synchrony in annual plants. In the SSE, we identified a novel phenomenon of reproductive synchrony: senescence synchrony. The role of vernalisation in realising flowering synchrony between plants of different ages under natural conditions was demonstrated by synchronisation and de-synchronisation of flowering initiation in vernalisation-sensitive and less-vernalisation-sensitive accessions, respectively. We also observed up-regulation of senescence-related genes at corresponding times. The approach we developed in this study provides a set of concepts and procedures that can be used to study reproductive synchrony experimentally under natural conditions.

Early stages of ecological speciation can create populations with an ecology and reproduction timing distinct from those of related populations. Landscape genetic models incorporating environmental heterogeneity and population-specific reproductive traits enable the processes of population genetic differentiation to be inferred. We investigated genome-wide genetic variation in ecotypic populations of Solidago virgaurea sensu lato, a herbaceous plant inhabiting a wide range of habitats (woodlands, serpentine barrens and alpine grasslands) and displaying remarkable variation in flowering time. Simultaneous evaluation of environmental factors revealed an overwhelming effect of soil type differences on neutral genetic differentiation, compared with elevational differences. This result probably reflects the abrupt environmental changes generated by geological boundaries, whereas mountain slopes exhibit clinal changes, facilitating gene exchange between neighbouring populations. Temporal isolation was positively associated with genetic differentiation, with some early-flowering serpentine populations having allele frequencies distinct from adjacent nonserpentine populations. Overall, this study highlights the importance of ecological processes and of evolution of flowering time to promote genetic differentiation of S. virgaurea populations in a complex landscape., (© 2017 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2017 New Phytologist Trust.)

Microbes are easily dispersed from one place to another, and immigrant microbes might contain information about the environments from which they came. We hypothesized that part of the microbial community on a flower's surface is transferred there from insect body surfaces and that this community can provide information to identify potential pollinator insects of that plant. We collected insect samples from the field, and found that an insect individual harbored an average of 12.2 × 10(5) microbial cells on its surface. A laboratory experiment showed that the microbial community composition on a flower surface changed after contact with an insect, suggesting that microbes are transferred from the insect to the flower. Comparison of the microbial fingerprint approach and direct visual observation under field condition suggested that the microbial community on a flower surface could to some extent indicate the structure of plant-pollinator interactions. In conclusion, species-specific insect microbial communities specific to insect species can be transferred from an insect body to a flower surface, and these microbes can serve as a "fingerprint" of the insect species, especially for large-bodied insects. Dispersal of microbes is a ubiquitous phenomenon that has unexpected and novel applications in many fields and disciplines.

Understanding how climate warming has an impact on the life cycle schedule of terrestrial organisms is critical to evaluate ecosystem vulnerability to environmental change. Despite recent advances identifying the molecular basis of temperature responses, few studies have incorporated this knowledge into predictive models. Here we develop a method to forecast flowering phenology by modelling regulatory dynamics of key flowering-time genes in perennial life cycles. The model, parameterized by controlled laboratory experiments, accurately reproduces the seasonal changes in gene expression, the corresponding timing of floral initiation and return to vegetative growth after a period of flowering in complex natural environments. A striking scenario forecast by the model under climate warming is that the shift in the return time to vegetative growth is greater than that in floral initiation, which results in a significant reduction of the flowering period. Our study demonstrates the usefulness of gene expression assessment to predict unexplored risks of climate change.

The life‐history characteristics of Cardamine leucantha (Tausch) O. E. Schulz (Brassicaceae) are described. The species is an herbaceous perennial that favors open but relatively moist habitats. It is distributed from Kyushu to Hokkaido in Japan but also occurs in Korea, Mongolia, China and the Russian Far East. In southwestern Japan, shoots start sprouting from mid‐ to late April, reaching approximately 30–70 cm in height, with 5–10 compound leaves. Ramets simultaneously produce one or more stoloniferous rhizomes that elongate until new ramets are formed at the tips. Cardamine leucantha has a pseudo‐annual life cycle, in which mother ramets wither at the end of each season and only daughter ramets appear aboveground in the next year. As a result, ramet positions change annually. In a study population, the number of flowers averaged 23.9 ± 21.0 per ramet and fruit set was 44.2 ± 24.8% (10.4 ± 10.1 fruits per ramet). Ramets produced 3.8 ± 2.3 rhizomes that were 22.0 ± 15.6 cm long. The species sometimes forms large populations. A single genet develops into a group of disconnected ramets spreading via clonal growth. Reproductive characteristics (e.g., fruit set and numbers of flowers and rhizomes) vary among populations, resulting in interpopulation differences in genet structure. Because the reference genome became available recently, established molecular tools will be applied effectively for the investigations of C. leucantha as a model clonal plant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many plant species overwinter before they flower. Transition to flowering is aligned to the seasonal transition as a response to the prolonged cold in winter by a process called vernalization. Multiple well-documented vernalization properties in crucifer species with diverse life histories are derived from environmental regulation of a central inhibitor of the flowering gene, Flowering Locus C (FLC). Episode(s) of flowering are prevented during high FLC expression and enabled during low FLC expression. FLC repression outlasts the winter to coincide with spring; this heterochronic aspect is termed "winter memory." In the annual Arabidopsis thaliana , winter memory has long been associated with the highly conserved histone modifiers Polycomb and Trithorax, which have antagonistic roles in transcription. However, there are experimental limitations in determining how dynamic, heterogenous histone modifications within the FLC locus generate the final transcriptional output. Recent theoretical considerations on cell-to-cell variability in gene expression and histone modifications generating bistable states brought support to the hypothesis of chromatin-encoded memory, as with other experimental systems in eukaryotes. Furthermore, these advances unify multiple properties of vernalization, not only the winter memory. Similarly, in the perennial Arabidopsis halleri ssp. gemmifera , recent integration of molecular with mathematical and ecological approaches unifies FLC chromatin features with the all-year-round memory of seasonal temperature. We develop the concept of FLC season-meter to combine existing information from the contrasting annual/perennial and experimental/theoretical sectors into a transitional framework. We highlight simplicity, high conservation, and discrete differences across extreme life histories in crucifers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The breeding system of an annual Cruciferae, Arabidopsis kamchatica subsp. kawasakiana, was studied in three natural populations. We applied four experimental treatments, open pollination, bagging, emasculation + bagging, and emasculation + hand-pollination + bagging. None of the emasculated flowers with bags produced fruits but we observed high fruit sets in the other three treatments. The results confirmed that A. kamchatica subsp. kawasakiana is a self-compatible, non-apomictic species that can produce seeds through auto-pollination. Considering the life cycle as an annual, increased reproductive assurance through auto-pollination should be critical for the maintenance of populations of A. kamchatica subsp. kawasakiana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract It has been considered that optimal flowering time evolves in annual plants because there are costs of delayed flowering that counteract the benefit of size increment by longer vegetative growth. The cost of delayed flowering in annual plants has been studied mostly in relation to external conditions, such as probability of survival. Several recent studies suggest that there are negative correlations between flowering time (FT) and reproductive effort (RE) in some annual plant species. In the present paper, we point out that a negative FT–RE relationship can be an intrinsic cost of delayed flowering in annual plants. The variation in optimal FT based on a negative FT–RE relationship was analyzed graphically and predicted patterns were compared with published empirical studies. Possible effects of negative FT–RE relationships on the ecology and evolution of FT in annual plants are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]