Life History Variation as a Model for Understanding Trade-Offs in Plant–Environment Interactions
Name
Lundgren & Des Marais CB 2020.pdf
Description
Accepted version
Size
429.73 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
9929c02d98e62908bbffb495c0398a54
Author(s)
Lundgren, Marjorie R.
Des Marais, David L.
Date Issued
February 2020
Journal
Current Biology
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Citation
Lundgren, Marjorie R. and David L. Des Marais. "Life History Variation as a Model for Understanding Trade-Offs in Plant–Environment Interactions." Current Biology 30, 4 (February 2020): PR180-R189. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
All plants must allocate limited resources to survival, growth, and reproduction. In natural species, allocation strategies reflect trade-offs between survivorship risk and subsequent fitness benefits and are therefore central to a species’ ecology. Artificial selection on allocation has generated high-yielding crops that often invest the bare minimum in defense or longevity. Ecological, genetic, and evolutionary analyses of plant life history — particularly with respect to longevity and resource allocation along an axis from annual to perennial species — provides a framework to evaluate trade-offs in plant–environment interactions in natural and managed systems. Recent efforts to develop new model plant systems for research and to increase agricultural resilience and efficiency by developing herbaceous perennial crops motivates our critical assessment of traditional assumptions regarding differences between annual and perennial plant species. Here, we review our present understanding of the genetic basis of physiological, developmental, and anatomical differences in wild and crop species and reach two broad conclusions. First, that perenniality and annuality should be considered syndromes comprised of many interacting traits, and that elucidating the genetic basis of these traits is required to assess models of evolution and to develop successful breeding strategies. Modern phenomic and biotechnology tools will facilitate these enquiries. Second, many classic assumptions about the difference between the two syndromes are supported by limited evidence. Throughout this Review, we highlight key knowledge gaps in the proximate and ultimate mechanisms driving life history variation, and suggest empirical approaches to parameterize trade-offs and to make progress in this critical area of direct relevance to ecology and plant performance in a changing world. Lundgren and Des Marais review the tradeoffs for different life history strategies in plants, and discuss how consideration of annuality and perreniality as syndromes can be applied to crop breeding strategies.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.01.003
