The molecular basis of local adaptation in Arabidopsis thaliana

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One of the most important challenges facing biology today is making sense of genetic variation. Understanding how genotypic variation translates into phenotypic variation and how it is structured in populations is fundamental to our understanding of evolution and has enormous practical implications for human health, agriculture and conservation. The long-term objective of this project is to increase our understanding of the molecular genetic basis for adaptive variation by studying flowering time in Arabidopsis thaliana. The focus is on the flowering response to cold temperatures (vernalization), one of the major mechanisms plants use to ensure that they flower at the right time, during the right season. The project seeks to describe the genetic architecture underlying variation for this trait, and will identify, at the molecular level, the major genes and alleles involved. The adaptive significance of the identified polymorphisms will be determined in field trials. The aims of the project are to map the genes responsible for variation between plants collected from different locations. This will be done by a combination of traditional linkage mapping and whole genome association mapping. A functional molecular analysis will be carried out on the alleles and loci identified.
This is a collaborative project between Magnus Nordborg ( University of Southern California), Joy Bergelson (University of Chicago) and Caroline Dean ( John Innes Centre).

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