DNA methylation variation and growth in the clonal Duchesnea indica is regulated by both past and present lead environments

ABSTRACT

Studies suggest that clonal plants’ ability to select habitats and forage in a heterogeneous environment is influenced by their past environment, with stress legacy potentially playing a crucial role. In this study, we examined parental ramets of Duchesnea indica Focke that were subject to either a control or lead-contaminated environment (past environment), and their newborn offspring were then transplanted into control, homogeneous lead or heterogeneous lead environment (present environment). We analysed how past and present environments affect plant growth and DNA methylation in offspring. The result shown that the DNA methylation loci composition of offspring was affected by the interaction of parental environment and offspring environment, and DNA methylation levels were higher in heterogeneous environments. Moreover, our findings indicate that offspring would thrive in the heterogeneous lead environment if they did not experience lead pollution in the past, their progeny will avoid lead toxicity by reducing underground biomass allocation. However, when the parents experienced lead stress environment, their biomass allocation strategies disappeared, and they prefer to grow in favourable patches to avoid lead-contaminated patches. We concluded that the integration of historical parental exposure to lead-contaminated and current information about their offspring’s environment are impacting plant phenotypes. It is possible that the stress legacy from the parents has been transmitted to their offspring ramets, and the stress legacy is at least partly based on heritable epigenetic variation. The phenotypic variation regulated by the stress legacy affects the growth performance, biomass allocation strategy, and even the behaviour of D. indica.

KEYWORDS:

• Heterogeneous environment
• morphological plasticity
• stress legacy
• epigenetic
• DNA methylation
• lead contaminated

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authors’ contributions

X Liu conceived and designed the experiments. SS Song performed the experiments, JX Quan and Linya Xing helped with the data analysis, JX Quan and SS Song wrote the manuscript. Others provided editorial advice. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [32201295; 41871036] and The Fourth National Survey of Traditional Chinese Medicine Resources [2018-43].