Parental or ancestral environments can induce heritable phenotypic changes, but whether such environment-induced heritable changes are a common phenomenon remains unexplored. Here, we subject 14 genotypes of Arabidopsis thaliana to 10 different environmental treatments and observe phenotypic and genome-wide gene expression changes over four successive generations. We find that all treatments caused heritable phenotypic and gene expression changes, with a substantial proportion stably transmitted over all observed generations. Intriguingly, the susceptibility of a genotype to environmental inductions could be predicted based on the transposon abundance in the genome. Our study thus challenges the classic view that the environment only participates in the selection of heritable variation and suggests that the environment can play a significant role in generating of heritable variations.

• MeSH
• Arabidopsis * genetika   MeSH
• fenotyp * MeSH
• genetická variace MeSH
• genom rostlinný MeSH
• genotyp * MeSH
• interakce genů a prostředí MeSH
• regulace genové exprese u rostlin * MeSH
• transpozibilní elementy DNA * genetika   MeSH
• životní prostředí MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• Názvy látek
• transpozibilní elementy DNA * MeSH

Increasing evidence for epigenetic variation within and among natural plant populations has led to much speculation about its role in the evolution of plant phenotypes. However, we still have a very limited understanding of the evolutionary potential of epigenetic variation, in particular in comparison to DNA sequence-based variation. To address this question, we compared the magnitudes of heritable phenotypic variation in epigenetic recombinant inbred lines (epiRILs) of Arabidopsis thaliana-lines that mainly differ in DNA methylation but only very little in DNA sequence-with other types of A. thaliana lines that differ strongly also in DNA sequence. We grew subsets of two epiRIL populations with subsets of two genetic RIL populations, of natural ecotype collections, and of lines from a natural population in a common environment and assessed their heritable variation in growth, phenology, and fitness. Among-line phenotypic variation and broad-sense heritabilities tended to be largest in natural ecotypes, but for some traits the variation among epiRILs was comparable to that among RILs and natural ecotypes. Within-line phenotypic variation was generally similar in epiRILs, RILs, and ecotypes. Provided that phenotypic variation in epiRILs is mainly caused by epigenetic differences, whereas in RILs and natural lines it is largely driven by sequence variation, our results indicate that epigenetic variation has the potential to create phenotypic variation that is stable and substantial, and thus of evolutionary significance.

• MeSH
• Arabidopsis genetika   fyziologie   MeSH
• biologická evoluce * MeSH
• biologická variabilita populace MeSH
• DNA rostlinná MeSH
• ekotyp * MeSH
• epigeneze genetická * MeSH
• genetická variace * MeSH
• kvantitativní znak dědičný * MeSH
• metylace DNA MeSH
• populační genetika * MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• práce podpořená grantem MeSH
• Názvy látek
• DNA rostlinná MeSH