Not dead yet: Diatom resting spores can survive in nature for several millennia.

Premise: Understanding the adaptive capacities of species over long timescales lies in examining the revived recent and millennia-old resting spores buried in sediments. We show for the first time the revival, viability, and germination rate of resting spores of the diatom Chaetoceros deposited in sub-seafloor sediments from three ages (recent: 0 to 80 years; ancient: ~1250 (Medieval Climate Anomaly) and ~6600 (Holocene Thermal Maximum) calendar year before present.

Methods: Recent and ancient Chaetoceros spores were revived to examine their viability and germination rate.

Intraspecific and interspecific adaptive latitudinal cline in Brassicaceae seed oil traits.

Premise Of The Study: Nearly all seed plants rely on stored seed reserves before photosynthesis can commence. Natural selection for seed oil traits must have occurred over 319 million years of evolution since the first seed plant ancestor. Accounting for the biogeographic distribution of seed oil traits is fundamental to understanding the mechanisms of adaptive evolution in seed plants.

Adaptive evolution of seed oil content in angiosperms: accounting for the global patterns of seed oils.

Background: Studies of the biogeographic distribution of seed oil content in plants are fundamental to understanding the mechanisms of adaptive evolution in plants as seed oil is the primary energy source needed for germination and establishment of plants. However, seed oil content as an adaptive trait in plants is poorly understood. Here, we examine the adaptive nature of seed oil content in 168 angiosperm families occurring in different biomes across the world.

Plasticity and constraints on fatty acid composition in the phospholipids and triacylglycerols of Arabidopsis accessions grown at different temperatures.

Background: Natural selection acts on multiple traits in an organism, and the final outcome of adaptive evolution may be constrained by the interaction of physiological and functional integration of those traits. Fatty acid composition is an important determinant of seed oil quality. In plants the relative proportions of unsaturated fatty acids in phospholipids and seed triacylglycerols often increases adaptively in response to lower growing temperatures to increase fitness.

Quantitative trait loci involved in regulating seed oil composition in Arabidopsis thaliana and their evolutionary implications.

Fatty acid composition is an important determinant of seed oil quality. Overall, 72 QTL for 12 fatty acid traits that control seed oil composition were identified in four recombinant inbred line (RIL) populations (Ler-0 × Sha, Ler-0 × Col-4, Ler-2 × Cvi, Ler-0 × No-0) of Arabidopsis thaliana. The identified QTL explained 3.