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Plant function and evolutionary biology
RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

Parental UV-B radiation regulates the habitat selection of clonal Duchesnea indica in heterogeneous light environments

Dan Tie A B , Yuehan Guo A , Chunrui Zhu A , Jiaxin Quan A , Shiqiang Liu A , Zhe Zhou A , Yongfu Chai A , Ming Yue A and Xiao Liu https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2029-554X A *
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Key Laboratory of Resource Biology and Biotechnology in Western China, Ministry of Education, Northwest University, Xi’an, China.

B Linyou Branch of Baoji Tobacco Company, Linyou County, Baoji, China.

* Correspondence to: liuxiao@nwu.edu.cn

Handling Editor: Peter Bozhkov

Functional Plant Biology 49(7) 600-612 https://doi.org/10.1071/FP21253
Submitted: 18 August 2021  Accepted: 31 January 2022   Published: 11 March 2022

© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Habitat selection behaviour is an effective strategy adopted by clonal plants in heterogeneous understorey light environments, and it is likely regulated by the parental environment's ultraviolet-B radiation levels (UV-B) due to the photomorphogenesis of UV-B and maternal effects. Here, parental ramets of Duchesnea indica were treated with two UV-B radiation levels [high (UV5 group) and low (UV10 group)], newborn offspring were grown under a heterogeneous light environment (ambient light vs shade habitat), and the growth and DNA methylation variations of parents and offspring were analysed. The results showed that parental UV-B affected not only the growth of the parent but also the offspring. The offspring of different UV-B-radiated parents showed different performances. Although these offspring all displayed a tendency to escape from light environments, such as entering shade habitats earlier, and allocating more biomass under shade (33.06% of control, 42.28% of UV5 and 72.73% of UV10), these were particularly obvious in offspring of the high UV-B parent. Improvements in epigenetic diversity (4.77 of control vs 4.83 of UV10) and total DNA methylation levels (25.94% of control vs 27.15% of UV10) and the inhibition of shade avoidance syndrome (denser growth with shorter stolons and internodes) were only observed in offspring of high UV-B parents. This difference was related to the eustress and stress effects of low and high UV-B, respectively. Overall, the behaviour of D. indica under heterogeneous light conditions was regulated by the parental UV-B exposure. Moreover, certain performance improvements helped offspring pre-regulate growth to cope with future environments and were probably associated with the effects of maternal DNA methylation variations in UV-B-radiated parents.

Keywords: clonal plants, DNA methylation, Duchesnea indica, foraging behavior, maternal effect, shade avoidance syndrome (SAS), UV-B radiation.


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