Life-history trade-offs explain local adaptation in Arabidopsis thaliana
7 affiliations
- 1Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, Chicago, United States
- 2University of Bordeaux, INRAE, BIOGECO, Cestas, France
- 3Gregor Mendel Institute, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna BioCenter, Vienna, Austria
- 4John Innes Centre, Norwich, United Kingdom
- 5Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
- 6Department of Natural Sciences, Mid-Sweden University, Sundsvall, Sweden
- 7Department of Biology, New York University, New York, United States
Abstract
Local adaptation has been demonstrated in many organisms, but the traits involved and the temporal and spatial scales at which selection acts are generally unknown. We carried out a multi-year study of 200 accessions (natural inbred lines) of Swedish Arabidopsis thaliana using local field sites and a combination of common-garden experiments that measured adult survival and fecundity, and selection experiments that measured fitness over the full life cycle. We found evidence of strong and variable selection, with particular genotypes favored more than fivefold in certain years and locations. Fecundity showed evidence of classical local adaptation, with accessions generally performing better closer to their home. However, relative to other accessions, southern ones usually had the highest fecundity—but were far more sensitive to harsh winters and slug herbivory, which strongly decreased both survival and fecundity. Furthermore, accessions originally sampled on beaches had low fecundity in all common-garden experiments, but massively outperformed all other accessions in the selection experiments, presumably due to an advantage during seedling establishment associated with their very large seeds. We conclude that local adaptation in A. thaliana reflects strong temporally and spatially varying selection on multiple traits, generally involving trade-offs and different life-history strategies, making fitness difficult to predict and measure.
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BibTeX
@article{brachi2026lifehistory,
title = {{Life-history trade-offs explain local adaptation in Arabidopsis thaliana}},
author = {Benjamin Brachi and Daniele Filiault and Rahul Pisupati and Tal Dahan and Anna Igolkina and Alison Anastasio and Mathew S Box and Susan Duncan and Talia Karasov and Envel Kerdaffrec and Laura Merwin and Timothy C Morton and Viktoria Nizhynska and Polina Novikova and Fernando Rabanal and Takashi Tsuchimatsu and Torbjörn Säll and Caroline Dean and Svante Holm and Joy Bergelson and Magnus Nordborg},
journal = {eLife},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.7554/elife.107477},
url = {https://elifesciences.org/articles/107477},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Life-history trade-offs explain local adaptation in Arabidopsis thaliana
AU - Benjamin Brachi
AU - Daniele Filiault
AU - Rahul Pisupati
AU - Tal Dahan
AU - Anna Igolkina
AU - Alison Anastasio
AU - Mathew S Box
AU - Susan Duncan
AU - Talia Karasov
AU - Envel Kerdaffrec
AU - Laura Merwin
AU - Timothy C Morton
AU - Viktoria Nizhynska
AU - Polina Novikova
AU - Fernando Rabanal
AU - Takashi Tsuchimatsu
AU - Torbjörn Säll
AU - Caroline Dean
AU - Svante Holm
AU - Joy Bergelson
AU - Magnus Nordborg
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/10
JO - eLife
DO - 10.7554/elife.107477
UR - https://elifesciences.org/articles/107477
AB - Local adaptation has been demonstrated in many organisms, but the traits involved and the temporal and spatial scales at which selection acts are generally unknown. We carried out a multi-year study of 200 accessions (natural inbred lines) of Swedish Arabidopsis thaliana using local field sites and a combination of common-garden experiments that measured adult survival and fecundity, and selection experiments that measured fitness over the full life cycle. We found evidence of strong and variable selection, with particular genotypes favored more than fivefold in certain years and locations. Fecundity showed evidence of classical local adaptation, with accessions generally performing better closer to their home. However, relative to other accessions, southern ones usually had the highest fecundity—but were far more sensitive to harsh winters and slug herbivory, which strongly decreased both survival and fecundity. Furthermore, accessions originally sampled on beaches had low fecundity in all common-garden experiments, but massively outperformed all other accessions in the selection experiments, presumably due to an advantage during seedling establishment associated with their very large seeds. We conclude that local adaptation in A. thaliana reflects strong temporally and spatially varying selection on multiple traits, generally involving trade-offs and different life-history strategies, making fitness difficult to predict and measure.
SN - 2050-084X
ER -