1. Natural Variation and the Genetic Basis of
Altitudinal Adaptation in Arabidopsis thaliana
Yonghai Luo
ETH Zurich, Plant Ecological Genetics, Institute of Integrative Biology (IBZ)
Universitätstrasse 16, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland

2. Global climate change and local adaptation

3. Factors affecting plant growth
Internal Factors
/Genetic Factors
Light (Quality, Intensity, Duration, etc.)
Temperature
Moisture
Atmosphere (CO2, O2, etc)
Nutrition
...
External Factors
/Environmental Factors
It is significant to uncover the interactions between genetic and environmental factors in order to understand the genetic basis of adaptation.

4. Why Arabidopsis thaliana?
Little is known about the genetic basis of altitudinal adaptation in plants to date
Much is known about plant molecular biology from studies on A. thaliana
A. thaliana Populations are found from high-altitude locations

5. Project Goals:
1. To characterize genetic and phenotypic differentiation between high- altitude and low-altitude populations of Arabidopsis thaliana
2. To investigate the genetic basis underlying altitudinal adaptation.

6. Experimental Approaches:
Neutral loci vs phenotypic divergence
Genome-wide sequence/expression variation
Natural variation in candidate genes and pathways
Manipulative environmental experiments
Forward genetic experiments
Genetics/
Genomics/
Mol. Biol.

7. 16 populations from various sites and altitudes were collected in the Swiss Alps

8. Genotyping of presumably neutral SSR loci

9. F-statistics calculation
Locus Fwc(is) Fwc(st) Fwc(it) M M M M M M M M M M
All:
Stenoien HK et al., 2005:
Le Corre V, 2005:

10. Next steps To finish Fst analysis
(including neutral- and non-neutral loci)
To carry out Qst estimation
To identify loci for further analysis

11. All colleagues in the group of Plant Ecological Genetics!
Acknowledgements
All colleagues in the group of Plant Ecological Genetics!
Thanks to all of you!