The pulse of the tree is under genetic control: eucalyptus as a case study

• DOI: 10.1111/tpj.14734
• Publication Date: 2020-03-06T14:03:30Z
• Authors: Jérôme Bartholomé; André Mabiala; Régis Burlett; Didier Bert; Jean‐Charles Leplé; Christophe Plomion; Jean‐Marc Gion
• Keywords: Genetic architecture; Quantitative Genetics

Summary The pulse of the tree (diurnal cycle stem radius fluctuations) has been widely studied as a way analyzing responses to environment, including phenotypic plasticity tree–water relationships in particular. However, genetic basis this daily phenotype and its interplay with environment remain largely unexplored. We characterized environmental determinants response, by monitoring fluctuation (dSRF) on 210 trees from Eucalyptus urophylla × E. grandis full‐sib family over 2 years. dSRF signal was broken down into hydraulic capacitance, assessed amplitude shrinkage (DA), net growth, estimated change maximum between two consecutive days (Δ R ). these traits were clearly different: DA positively correlated atmospheric variables relating water demand, while Δ associated soil content. heritability for ranged low moderate time, revealing time‐dependent or environment‐dependent complex determinism. identified 686 384 quantitative trait loci (QTL) representing 32 31 QTL regions , respectively. identification gene networks underlying 27 major genomics both generated additional hypotheses concerning biological mechanisms involved response demand supply. This study highlights that environmentally induced changes are genetically controlled suggests integrated time shape architecture mature traits.