Sensitivity of premeiotic and meiotic stages to spontaneous and induced mutations in barley and maize

Effects of Clonal Reproduction on Evolutionary Lag and Evolutionary Rescue

Evolutionary lag-the difference between mean and optimal phenotype in the current environment-is of keen interest in light of rapid environmental change. Many ecologically important organisms have life histories that include stage structure and both sexual and clonal reproduction, yet how stage structure and clonality interplay to govern a population's rate of evolution and evolutionary lag is unknown. Effects of clonal reproduction on mean phenotype partition into two portions: one that is phenotype dependent, and another that is genotype dependent. This partitioning is governed by the association between the nonadditive genetic plus random environmental component of phenotype of clonal offspring and their parents. While clonality slows phenotypic evolution toward an optimum, it can dramatically increase population survival after a sudden step change in optimal phenotype. Increased adult survival slows phenotypic evolution but facilitates population survival after a step change; this positive effect can, however, be lost given survival-fecundity trade-offs. Simulations indicate that the benefits of increased clonality under environmental change greatly depend on the nature of that change: increasing population persistence under a step change while decreasing population persistence under a continuous linear change requiring de novo variation. The impact of clonality on the probability of persistence for species in a changing world is thus inexorably linked to the temporal texture of the change they experience.

INBREEDING DEPRESSION UNDER JOINT SELFING, OUTCROSSING, AND ASEXUALITY

Partial asexual reproduction was introduced into a model of inbreeding depression due to nearly recessive lethal mutations in a partially selfing population. The frequencies of asexuality, selfing, and outcrossing were either constant or occurred in cycles of a single sexual generation followed by one or more asexual generations. We found that increasing the degree of asexuality generally increases the inbreeding depression maintained in an equilibrium population with a given selfing rate. This is due to the increase in the number of mutations relative to sexual generations during which selfing-induced purging of mutations may take place. For very high genomic mutation rates, sufficient to produce a threshold rate of self-fertilization for purging recessive lethal mutations, asexuality can have the opposite effect, decreasing equilibrium inbreeding depression, because of an increase in the efficiency of selection against mutations in heterozygotes with asexuality.

Mutation accumulation in real branches: fitness assays for genomic deleterious mutation rate and effect in large-statured plants

The genomic deleterious mutation rate and mean effect are central to the biology and evolution of all species. Large-statured plants, such as trees, are predicted to have high mutation rates due to mitotic mutation and the absence of a sheltered germ line, but their size and generation time has hindered genetic study. We develop and test approaches for estimating deleterious mutation rates and effects from viability comparisons within the canopy of large-statured plants. Our methods, inspired by E. J. Klekowski, are a modification of the classic Bateman-Mukai mutation-accumulation experiment. Within a canopy, cell lineages accumulate mitotic mutations independently. Gametes or zygotes produced at more distal points by these cell lineages contain more mitotic mutations than those at basal locations, and within-flower selfs contain more homozygous mutations than between-flower selfs. The resulting viability differences allow demonstration of lethal mutation with experiments similar in size to assays of genetic load and allow estimates of the rate and effect of new mutations with moderate precision and bias similar to that of classic mutation-accumulation experiments in small-statured organisms. These methods open up new possibilities with the potential to provide valuable new insights into the evolutionary genetics of plants.

Consequences of life history for inbreeding depression and mating system evolution in plants

Many plants are perennial, but most studies of inbreeding depression and mating system evolution focus on annuals. This paper extends a population genetic model of inbreeding depression due to recessive deleterious mutations to perennials. The model incorporates life history and mating system variation, and multiplicative selection across many genetic loci. In the absence of substantial mitotic mutation, perennials have higher mean fitness and lower, or even negative, inbreeding depression than annuals with the same mating system. As in annuals, self fertilization exposes deleterious recessive mutations to selection, increasing mean fitness and decreasing inbreeding depression. Including mitotic mutation decreases mean fitness while increasing inbreeding depression. Perenniality introduces a kind of selective sieve, such that strongly recessive mutations contribute disproportionately to mean fitness and inbreeding depression. In the presence of high mitotic mutation, this selective sieve may provide a mechanistic basis for high inbreeding depression observed in some long lived perennials. Without substantial mitotic mutation, it is difficult to reconcile genetically based models of inbreeding depression with the empirical generalization that perennials outcross while related annuals self fertilize.

Specific-locus mutation assays in Zea mays. A report of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Gene-Tox Program

The use of the angiosperm Zea mays in assays for the induction of mutations at specific genetic loci is discussed. The effect of chemical mutagens on 3 genetic end points is evaluated. The end points surveyed were the loss of the phenotype of dominant alleles in heterozygotes, the induction of segregating point mutations in M2 plants, and the induction of forward and reverse mutations in pollen grains. Maize is sensitive to a wide range of mutagens and has the capacity to activate promutagens. This plant has been used to study mutagenesis under both laboratory and in situ conditions.