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Environmental Regulation of Floral Color

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Evolutionary Biology: Mechanisms and Trends

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Abstract

Analyzing the evolution of complex traits requires multiple tools and perspectives. Here, we consider one perception that complex trait is a system that undergoes multiple transformations involving factors both genetic and environmental. By carefully dissecting the genetic basis of a complex trait and examining how the genetic basis responds to the natural environment and the consequences, we argue that the genetic components of a complex trait and their interactions are inherently information-rich for evolutionary studies if we know what kind of data to gather. We take the anthocyanin pathway in Ipomoea purpurea flower as a model to analyze how the natural environment regulates the flower color and how the gene expression is modified to provide the biochemical substance for the phenotype. As summarized here with multidisciplinary data, the relationship between genotype and phenotype is likely to be elucidated for the complex trait of floral color in the foreseeable future.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 20 Nan Xin Cun, Beijing, 100093, China

    Yingqing Lu, Lulu Xie & Ruijuan Zhang

  2. Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Lulu Xie & Ruijuan Zhang

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  1. Yingqing Lu
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  2. Lulu Xie
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  3. Ruijuan Zhang
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Correspondence to Yingqing Lu .

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  1. CNRS UMR 6632, Labo. Evolution Biologique et, Université d'Aix-Marseille, place Victor Hugo 3, Marseille CX 03, 13331, France

    Pierre Pontarotti

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Lu, Y., Xie, L., Zhang, R. (2012). Environmental Regulation of Floral Color. In: Pontarotti, P. (eds) Evolutionary Biology: Mechanisms and Trends. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-30425-5_8

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