Full paper
Variation in Arabidopsis developmental responses to oomycete infection: resilience vs changes in life history traits

Article first published online: 10 DEC 2012
DOI: 10.1111/nph.12073
© 2012 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2012 New Phytologist Trust
Additional Information
How to Cite
Salvaudon, L. and Shykoff, J. A. (2013), Variation in Arabidopsis developmental responses to oomycete infection: resilience vs changes in life history traits. New Phytologist, 197: 919–926. doi: 10.1111/nph.12073
Publication History
- Issue published online: 7 JAN 2013
- Article first published online: 10 DEC 2012
- Manuscript Accepted: 23 OCT 2012
- Manuscript Received: 25 SEP 2012
Funded by
- European Communities 7th Framework Programme. Grant Number: FP7/2007-2013
Keywords:
- Arabidopsis thaliana ;
- Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis ;
- life history traits;
- plasticity;
- tolerance
Summary
- Although plant resistance to aggressors has been well described, there is still little knowledge about the mechanisms underlying their tolerance to pathogens. Tolerance often appears to be mediated by changes in life history traits, shifting host resource investment from growth to reproduction, but whether host phenotype modifications induced after attack are adaptive is not always clear.
- Here, we investigated the details of the impact of Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis infection on several biomass, phenology and architectural traits of Arabidopsis thaliana, for three pathogen genotypes and three host plant genotypes that have been shown previously to differ greatly in fecundity and tolerance to infection.
- We found that, although host genotype explains most of the variance in life history traits, these three lines differ critically in their response to infection, with delays and biomass losses at bolting, together with changes in inflorescence architecture, observed at one extreme host line, and an advantage at bolting for infected plants and no inflorescence alteration for the other.
- These results suggest that the differences in tolerance observed previously in this pathosystem do not involve plasticity in inflorescence architecture, but may arise from induced changes at the vegetative stage, before plant transition to reproduction.

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