title: Transcriptome responses to temperature, water availability and photoperiod are conserved among mature trees of two divergent Douglas-fir provenances from a coastal and an interior habitat.
abstract: Local adaptation and phenotypic plasticity are important components of plant responses to variations in environmental conditions. While local adaptation has been widely studied in trees, little is known about plasticity of gene expression in adult trees in response to ever changing environmental conditions in natural habitats. Here we investigate plasticity of gene expression in needle tissue between two Douglas-fir provenances represented by 25 adult trees using deep RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq).
  
  
  
  Using linear mixed models we investigated the effect of temperature, soil water availability and photoperiod on the abundance of 59189 detected transcripts. Expression of more than 80 % of all identified transcripts revealed a response to variations in environmental conditions in the field. GO term overrepresentation analysis revealed gene expression responses to temperature, soil water availability and photoperiod that are highly conserved among many plant taxa. However, expression differences between the two Douglas-fir provenances were rather small compared to the expression differences observed between individual trees. Although the effect of environment on global transcript expression was high, the observed genotype by environment (GxE) interaction of gene expression was surprisingly low, since only 21 of all detected transcripts showed a GxE interaction.
  
  
  
  The majority of the transcriptome responses in plant leaf tissue is driven by variations in environmental conditions. The small variation between individuals and populations suggests strong conservation of this response within Douglas-fir. Therefore we conclude that plastic transcriptome responses to variations in environmental conditions are only weakly affected by local adaptation in Douglas-fir.
authors: Forest Research Institute of Baden-Württemberg (FVA), Wonnhaldestrasse 4, D-79100, Freiburg i. Brsg., Germany.|Institute for Biology III, Faculty of Biology, Albert Ludwigs University Freiburg, Schänzlestrasse 1, D-79104, Freiburg i. Brsg., Germany.|Present Address: Institute of Medical Biometry, Epidemiology and Informatics (IMBEI), University Medical Center Mainz, Obere Zahlbacher Strasse 69, 55131, Mainz, Germany.
authors: Moritz
authors: M
authors: Hess
authors: Forest Research Institute of Baden-Württemberg (FVA), Wonnhaldestrasse 4, D-79100, Freiburg i. Brsg., Germany.|Present Address: Department of Forest Botany and Tree Physiology, Büsgen-Institute, Georg-August-University Göttingen, Büsgenweg 2, D-37077, Göttingen, Germany.
authors: Henning
authors: H
authors: Wildhagen
authors: Forest Research Institute of Baden-Württemberg (FVA), Wonnhaldestrasse 4, D-79100, Freiburg i. Brsg., Germany.|Department of Biology, Graduate Programs in Cell & Systems Biology and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 3359 Mississauga Road, Mississauga, ON, L5L 1C6, Canada.
authors: Laura Verena
authors: LV
authors: Junker
authors: Forest Research Institute of Baden-Württemberg (FVA), Wonnhaldestrasse 4, D-79100, Freiburg i. Brsg., Germany. ingo.ensminger@utoronto.ca.|Department of Biology, Graduate Programs in Cell & Systems Biology and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 3359 Mississauga Road, Mississauga, ON, L5L 1C6, Canada. ingo.ensminger@utoronto.ca.
authors: Ingo
authors: I
authors: Ensminger
mesh_terms: D028202:Abies / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology*; D000222:Adaptation, Physiological / Q000187:drug effects / Q000235:genetics; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D004305:Dose-Response Relationship, Drug; D017753:Ecosystem; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D063990:Gene Ontology; D058977:Molecular Sequence Annotation; D017440:Photoperiod; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA; D013696:Temperature; D014867:Water / Q000494:pharmacology*
chemical_list: D014867:Water
keywords: Drought; Gene expression; Heat; Local adaptation; Natural environment; Phenotypic plasticity; Photoperiod; Pseudotsuga menziesii; RNA-Seq; Transcriptome