Survival Strategies of Duckweeds, the World's Smallest Angiosperms

Duckweeds (Lemnaceae) are small, simply constructed aquatic higher plants that grow on or just below the surface of quiet waters. They consist primarily of leaf-like assimilatory organs, or fronds, that reproduce mainly by vegetative replication. Despite their diminutive size and inornate habit, duckweeds have been able to colonize and maintain themselves in almost all of the world's climate zones. They are thereby subject to multiple adverse influences during the growing season, such as high temperatures, extremes of light intensity and pH, nutrient shortage, damage by microorganisms and herbivores, the presence of harmful substances in the water, and competition from other aquatic plants, and they must also be able to withstand winter cold and drought that can be lethal to the fronds. This review discusses the means by which duckweeds come to grips with these adverse influences to ensure their survival. Important duckweed attributes in this regard are a pronounced potential for rapid growth and frond replication, a juvenile developmental status facilitating adventitious organ formation, and clonal diversity. Duckweeds have specific features at their disposal for coping with particular environmental difficulties and can also cooperate with other organisms of their surroundings to improve their survival chances.

Genomics of turions from the Greater Duckweed reveal its pathways for dormancy and re-emergence strategy

Over 15 families of aquatic plants are known to use a strategy of developmental switching upon environmental stress to produce dormant propagules called turions. However, few molecular details for turion biology have been elucidated due to the difficulties in isolating high-quality nucleic acids from this tissue. We successfully developed a new protocol to isolate high-quality transcripts and carried out RNA-seq analysis of mature turions from the Greater Duckweed Spirodela polyrhiza. Comparison of turion transcriptomes to that of fronds, the actively growing leaf-like tissue, were carried out. Bioinformatic analysis of high confidence, differentially expressed transcripts between frond and mature turion tissues revealed major pathways related to stress tolerance, starch and lipid metabolism, and dormancy that are mobilized to reprogram frond meristems for turion differentiation. We identified the key genes that are likely to drive starch and lipid accumulation during turion formation, as well as those in pathways for starch and lipid utilization upon turion germination. Comparison of genome-wide cytosine methylation levels also revealed evidence for epigenetic changes in the formation of turion tissues. Similarities between turions and seeds provide evidence that key regulators for seed maturation and germination were retooled for their function in turion biology.

Genome-Wide Analysis of the Growth-Regulating Factor (GRF) Family in Aquatic Plants and Their Roles in the ABA-Induced Turion Formation of Spirodela polyrhiza

Growth-regulating factors (GRFs) are plant-specific transcription factors that play essential roles in regulating plant growth and stress response. The GRF gene families have been described in several terrestrial plants, but a comprehensive analysis of these genes in diverse aquatic species has not been reported yet. In this study, we identified 130 GRF genes in 13 aquatic plants, including floating plants (Azolla filiculoides, Wolffia australiana, Lemna minuta, Spirodela intermedia, and Spirodela polyrhiza), floating-leaved plants (Nymphaea colorata and Euryale ferox), submersed plants (Zostera marina, Ceratophyllum demersum, Aldrovanda vesiculosa, and Utricularia gibba), an emergent plant (Nelumbo nucifera), and an amphibious plant (Cladopus chinensis). The gene structures, motifs, and cis-acting regulatory elements of these genes were analyzed. Phylogenetic analysis divided these GRFs into five clusters, and ABRE cis-elements were highly enriched in the promoter region of the GRFs in floating plants. We found that abscisic acid (ABA) is efficient at inducing the turion of Spirodela polyrhiza (giant duckweed), accompanied by the fluctuated expression of SpGRF genes in their fronds. Our results provide information about the GRF gene family in aquatic species and lay the foundation for future studies on the functions of these genes.

Latitudinal variation in norms of reaction of phenology in the greater duckweed Spirodela polyrhiza

Variable environments may result in the evolution of adaptive phenotypic plasticity when cues reliably indicate an appropriate phenotype-environment match. Although adaptive plasticity is well established for phenological traits expressed across environments, local differentiation in norms of reaction is less well studied. The switch from the production of regular fronds to overwintering 'turions' in the greater duckweed Spirodela polyrhiza is vital to fitness and is expressed as a norm of reaction induced by falling temperatures associated with the onset of winter. However, the optimal norm of reaction to temperature is expected to differ across latitudes. Here, we test the hypothesis that a gradient in the length and predictability of growing seasons across latitudes results in the evolution of reaction norms characterized by earlier turion production at higher latitudes. We test this by collecting S. polyrhiza from replicate populations across seven latitudes from Ontario to Florida and then assessing differentiation in thermal reaction norms of turion production along a common temperature gradient. As predicted, northern populations produce turions at a lower birth order and earlier; a significant latitude-by-temperature interaction suggests that reaction norm differentiation has occurred. Our results provide evidence of differentiation in reaction norms across latitudes in a phenological trait, and we discuss how the adaptive significance of this plasticity might be further tested.

Analysis of ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylase expression during turion formation induced by abscisic acid in Spirodela polyrhiza (greater duckweed)

BACKGROUND

Aquatic plants differ in their development from terrestrial plants in their morphology and physiology, but little is known about the molecular basis of the major phases of their life cycle. Interestingly, in place of seeds of terrestrial plants their dormant phase is represented by turions, which circumvents sexual reproduction. However, like seeds turions provide energy storage for starting the next growing season.

RESULTS

To begin a characterization of the transition from the growth to the dormant phase we used abscisic acid (ABA), a plant hormone, to induce controlled turion formation in Spirodela polyrhiza and investigated their differentiation from fronds, representing their growth phase, into turions with respect to morphological, ultra-structural characteristics, and starch content. Turions were rich in anthocyanin pigmentation and had a density that submerged them to the bottom of liquid medium. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) of turions showed in comparison to fronds shrunken vacuoles, smaller intercellular space, and abundant starch granules surrounded by thylakoid membranes. Turions accumulated more than 60% starch in dry mass after two weeks of ABA treatment. To further understand the mechanism of the developmental switch from fronds to turions, we cloned and sequenced the genes of three large-subunit ADP-glucose pyrophosphorylases (APLs). All three putative protein and exon sequences were conserved, but the corresponding genomic sequences were extremely variable mainly due to the invasion of miniature inverted-repeat transposable elements (MITEs) into introns. A molecular three-dimensional model of the SpAPLs was consistent with their regulatory mechanism in the interaction with the substrate (ATP) and allosteric activator (3-PGA) to permit conformational changes of its structure. Gene expression analysis revealed that each gene was associated with distinct temporal expression during turion formation. APL2 and APL3 were highly expressed in earlier stages of turion development, while APL1 expression was reduced throughout turion development.

CONCLUSIONS

These results suggest that the differential expression of APLs could be used to enhance energy flow from photosynthesis to storage of carbon in aquatic plants, making duckweeds a useful alternative biofuel feedstock.