Department of Molecular Biology and Ecology of Plants, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, 6997801, Israel.
BMC Plant Biol. 2024 Aug 22;24(1):794. doi: 10.1186/s12870-024-05458-x.
The theory of Condition Dependent Sex predicts that - everything else being equal - less fit individuals would outcross at higher rates compared with fitter ones. Here we used the mixed mating plant Lamium amplexicaule, capable of producing both self-pollinating closed flowers (CL), alongside open flowers (CH) that allow cross pollination to test it. We investigated the effects of abiotic stress - salt solution irrigation - on the flowering patterns of plants and their offspring. We monitored several flowering and vegetative parameters, including the number and distribution of flowers, CH fraction, and plant size.
We found that stressed plants show an increased tendency for self-pollination and a deficit in floral and vegetative development. However, when parentally primed, stressed plants show a milder response. Un-stressed offspring of stressed parents show reversed responses and exhibit an increased tendency to outcross, and improve floral and vegetative development.
In summary, we found that stress affects the reproduction strategy in the plants that experienced the stress and in subsequent offspring through F2 generation. Our results provide experimental evidence supporting a transgenerational extension to the theories of fitness associate sex and dispersal, where an individual's tendency for sex and dispersal may depend on the stress experienced by its parents.
条件依赖性别理论预测，在其他条件相同的情况下，与健康个体相比，适应性较低的个体的异交率会更高。在这里，我们使用了能够产生自花授粉封闭花（CL）和允许异花授粉的开放花（CH）的混合交配植物 Lamium amplexicaule 来检验这一理论。我们研究了非生物胁迫 - 盐水灌溉 - 对植物及其后代开花模式的影响。我们监测了几个开花和营养生长参数，包括花的数量和分布、CH 分数和植物大小。
我们发现，受胁迫的植物表现出自交的倾向增加，并且在花和营养生长发育方面存在缺陷。然而，当母体被预先处理时，受胁迫的植物表现出较轻的反应。未受胁迫的受胁迫亲本的后代表现出相反的反应，表现出更强的异交倾向，并改善了花和营养生长发育。
总之，我们发现压力通过 F2 代影响经历压力的植物及其后代的繁殖策略。我们的研究结果为适应性别和扩散的适应性相关理论提供了实验证据，其中个体的性别和扩散倾向可能取决于其父母经历的压力。
