Transgenerational Plasticity in Flower Color Induced by Caterpillars

Mar Sobral; Isabelle P Neylan; Eduardo Narbona; Rodolfo Dirzo

doi:10.3389/fpls.2021.617815

Transgenerational Plasticity in Flower Color Induced by Caterpillars

Front Plant Sci. 2021 Mar 15:12:617815. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2021.617815. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Mar Sobral^{1

2}, Isabelle P Neylan^{2

3}, Eduardo Narbona⁴, Rodolfo Dirzo^{2

5}

Affiliations

¹ Departamento de Biología Funcional, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, USC, Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
² Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States.
³ Department of Evolution and Ecology, Center for Population Biology, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA, United States.
⁴ Departamento de Biología Molecular e Ingeniería Bioquímica, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Seville, Spain.
⁵ Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States.

Abstract

Variation in flower color due to transgenerational plasticity could stem directly from abiotic or biotic environmental conditions. Finding a link between biotic ecological interactions across generations and plasticity in flower color would indicate that transgenerational effects of ecological interactions, such as herbivory, might be involved in flower color evolution. We conducted controlled experiments across four generations of wild radish (Raphanus sativus, Brassicaceae) plants to explore whether flower color is influenced by herbivory, and to determine whether flower color is associated with transgenerational chromatin modifications. We found transgenerational effects of herbivory on flower color, partly related to chromatin modifications. Given the presence of herbivory in plant populations worldwide, our results are of broad significance and contribute to our understanding of flower color evolution.

Keywords: Brassicaceae; anthocyanins; chromatin modifications; flower color; herbivory; methylation; transgenerational plasticity.