Abstract Detail

Symbioses: Plant, Animal, and Microbe Interactions

Curé, Anne [1], Segraves, Kari [2].

The effect of increasing herbivore damage on the tolerance and resilience of neopolyploids.

Whole-genome duplication (WGD), or polyploidy, causes immediate morphological and physiological changes in plants that could affect how polyploids respond to insect herbivores. Although plants commonly use physical and chemical defenses to ward away herbivores, they can also use an alternate strategy where they instead tolerate damage to herbivores. Tolerance is when damaged plants have equal or greater lifetime fitness as compared to undamaged plants, and tolerance may change with increasing levels of herbivore damage. Thus, we examined if WGD affects tolerance and resilience on a gradient of herbivore damage. We used diploid and newly formed polyploid (neopolyploid) Arabidopsis thaliana from three geographically dispersed ecotypes and tested if their tolerance and resilience changed at six different damage levels. We estimated tolerance as the ratio of lifetime fitness of damaged to undamaged plants, and resilience as the difference between damaged and undamaged plants in total seed mass, total seed count, and germination rate. If neopolyploids are more tolerant to damage, then this may give polyploids an advantage in mixed diploid-polyploid populations and, thus, may help us understand how polyploid populations establish.

1 - Syracuse University, Department Of Biology, 107 College Pl, 110 Life Sciences Complex, Syracuse, NY, 13244, United States
2 - Syracuse University, Biology, 107 College Pl, Syracuse, NY, 13244, United States

Keywords:
Whole genome duplication
polyploidy
Neopolyploid
Arabidopsis thaliana
herbivory
tolerance.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: SYMB2, Symbioses: Plant, Animal and Microbe Interactions 2
Location: /
Date: Tuesday, July 20th, 2021
Time: 1:15 PM(EDT)
Number: SYMB2004
Abstract ID:210
Candidate for Awards:None