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Siberian Arabidopsis lyrata

A. lyrata is a member of the genus Arabidopsis with wide geographical distribution comparable to the model A. thaliana, however, shifted towards boreal regions. We explore the natural variation of ploidy in A. lyrata and the mechanisms of the establishment of new polyploid populations in the face of environmental challenges. The difficulty in establishing polyploids is adapting meiotic regulation to provide the faithful chromosome segregation after the whole-genome duplication, often in conditions of reduced effective population sizes, harsh environments, and competition with more common diploids. In contrast to the European tetraploid A. lyrata populations which establishment was facilitated by the introgression of already adapted to tetraploidy A. arenosa alleles, the formation of the Siberian tetraploid A. lyrata is independent. This provides a rare opportunity to study parallel adaptation to whole-genome duplication in closely related populations and cross-species comparisons.

In a coordinated effort with the group of Levy Yant, we sequence the entire herbarium collection (~120 different geo-locations across Eurasia) of A. lyrata at Moscow State University. This will allow us to estimate the natural ploidy variation in A. lyrata species, describe population structure, evolution and climate adaptation of the species, as well as provide a powerful comparative dataset to the 1001 A. thaliana genomes project. Additionally, we obtained fresh A. lyrata seeds from 20 populations of varying ploidy in Yakutia (collected by Nikita Tikhomirov), which are now growing in the greenhouse at MPIPZ. This part of the project is focused on the mechanisms of the early establishment of the stable tetraploid lineages.

Related Publications

Nature Genetics July: 18, 2016

Sequencing of the genus Arabidopsis identifies a complex history of nonbifurcating speciation and abundant trans-specific polymorphism
https://www.nature.com/articles/ng.3617

Molecular Biology and Evolution: January 12, 2017

Genome sequencing reveals the origin of the allotetraploid arabidopsis suecica
https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/34/4/957/2838775?login=true

Current Opinion in Plant Biology: April 30, 2018

Polyploid Arabidopsis species originated around recent glaciation maxima
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369526617301309

PNAS: March 20, 2019
Genome of Crucihimalaya himalaica, a close relative of Arabidopsis, shows ecological adaptation to high altitude
https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1817580116



Molecular Ecology: February 21, 2020

Parallel adaptation to climate above the 35th parallel
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/mec.15391

Nature ecology & evolution: August 19, 2021
Gradual evolution of allopolyploidy in arabidopsis suecica
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-021-01525-w

Springer Nature: October 25, 2022
Ancestral self-compatibility facilitates the establishment of allopolyploids in brassicaceae
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00497-022-00451-6

Nature: May 17, 2023
Cycles of satellite and transposon evolution in arabidopsis centromeres
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06062-z

Molecular Biology and Evolution:July 11, 2023
Transition to self-compatibility associated with dominant s-allele in a diploid siberian progenitor of allotetraploid arabidopsis kamchatica revealed by arabidopsis lyrata genomes
https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article-abstract/40/7/msad122/7222474

Springer Nature: February 2, 2023
Inference of polyploid origin and inheritance mode from population genomic data
https://link.springer.com/protocol/10.1007/978-1-0716-2561-3_15

BioRxiv: August 27, 2024
Multiple polyploidizations in Arabidopsis lyrata stabilized by long-range adaptive introgression across Eurasia
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.08.27.609292v1.abstract

BioRxiv: December 10, 2024
Diploid origins, adaptation to polyploidy, and the beginning of rediploidization in allotetraploid arabidopsis suecica
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.12.06.627142v1.abstract

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