Hubei Hongshan Laboratory, Wuhan, Hubei, China.
College of Plant Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, Hubei, China.
J Exp Bot. 2024 Feb 2;75(3):1004-1015. doi: 10.1093/jxb/erad398.
Phenotypic plasticity is an important topic in biology and evolution. However, how to generate broadly applicable insights from individual studies remains a challenge. Here, with flowering time observed from a large geographical region for sorghum and rice genetic populations, we examine the consistency of parameter estimation for reaction norms of genotypes across different subsets of environments and searched for potential strategies to inform the study design. Both sample size and environmental mean range of the subset affected the consistency. The subset with either a large range of environmental mean or a large sample size resulted in genetic parameters consistent with the overall pattern. Furthermore, high accuracy through genomic prediction was obtained for reaction norm parameters of untested genotypes using models built from tested genotypes under the subsets of environments with either a large range or a large sample size. With 1428 and 1674 simulated settings, our analyses suggested that the distribution of environmental index values of a site should be considered in designing experiments. Overall, we showed that environmental context was critical, and considerations should be given to better cover the intended range of the environmental variable. Our findings have implications for the genetic architecture of complex traits, plant-environment interaction, and climate adaptation.
表型可塑性是生物学和进化中的一个重要课题。然而，如何从个体研究中得出广泛适用的见解仍然是一个挑战。在这里，我们观察了高粱和水稻遗传群体在一个大地理区域的开花时间，研究了不同环境子集下基因型反应规范参数估计的一致性，并寻找了潜在的策略来为研究设计提供信息。样本量和环境均值范围的子集都影响了一致性。环境均值范围较大或样本量较大的子集产生了与整体模式一致的遗传参数。此外，通过使用在具有较大范围或较大样本量的环境子集下构建的测试基因型的模型，对未测试基因型的反应规范参数进行了基因组预测，获得了很高的准确性。在 1428 和 1674 个模拟设置中，我们的分析表明，在设计实验时应考虑环境指数值的分布。总的来说，我们表明环境背景是至关重要的，应该考虑更好地覆盖环境变量的预期范围。我们的研究结果对复杂性状的遗传结构、植物与环境的相互作用和气候适应具有重要意义。
