Plasticity, pleiotropy and fitness trade‐offs in Arabidopsis genotypes with different telomere lengths

• Published in: The New phytologist Vol. 233; no. 4; pp. 1939 - 1952
• Main Authors: Campitelli, Brandon E., Razzaque, Samsad, Barbero, Borja, Abdulkina, Liliia R., Hall, Mitchell H., Shippen, Dorothy E., Juenger, Thomas E., Shakirov, Eugene V.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.02.2022
• Subjects: Abiotic factors; abiotic stress; Arabidopsis; Arabidopsis thaliana; environment; Fitness; Flowering; flowering time; Genetic Fitness; Genotype; genotype-environment interaction; Genotypes; Growth conditions; Leaves; life history; Mutants; Natural selection; Physiological effects; Physiology; plants; Pleiotropy; Reproductive fitness; seeds; Selection, Genetic; stress; stress response; Telomere - genetics; telomere dynamics; Telomeres; tert; Yeast; Arabidopsis thaliana; stress; environment; telomere dynamics; tert; flowering time; plants; seeds
• ISSN: 0028-646X; 1469-8137; 1469-8137
• DOI: 10.1111/nph.17880

Summary Telomere length has been implicated in the organismal response to stress, but the underlying mechanisms are unknown. Here we examine the impact of telomere length changes on the responses to three contrasting abiotic environments in Arabidopsis, and measure 32 fitness, developmental, physiological and leaf‐level anatomical traits. We report that telomere length in wild‐type and short‐telomere mutants is resistant to abiotic stress, while the elongated telomeres in ku70 mutants are more plastic. We detected significant pleiotropic effects of telomere length on flowering time and key leaf physiological and anatomical traits. Furthermore, our data reveal a significant genotype by environment (G × E) interaction for reproductive fitness, with the benefits and costs to performance depending on the growth conditions. These results imply that life‐history trade‐offs between flowering time and reproductive fitness are impacted by telomere length variation. We postulate that telomere length in plants is subject to natural selection imposed by different environments.