Epigenetic variation and environmental change: Fig. 1.

Epigenetic variation and environmental change.

Environmental conditions can change the activity of plant genes via epigenetic effects that alter the competence of genetic information to be expressed. This may provide a powerful strategy for plants to adapt to environmental change. However, as epigenetic changes do not modify DNA sequences and are therefore reversible, only those epi-mutations that are transmitted through the germline can be...

Adjusting to Global Change through Clonal Growth and Epigenetic Variation

The earth is experiencing major changes in global and regional climates and changes are predicted to accelerate in the future. Many species will be under considerable pressure to evolve, to migrate, or be faced with extinction. Clonal plants would appear to be at a particular disadvantage due to their limited mobility and limited capacity for adaptation. However, they have outlived previous env...

Epigenetic responses to environmental change and their evolutionary implications.

Chromatin is a complex of DNA, RNA, histones and non-histone proteins and provides the platform on which the transcriptional machinery operates in eukaryotes. The structure and configuration of chromatin are manipulated by families of enzymes, some catalysing the dynamic addition and removal of chemical ligands to selected protein amino acids and some directly altering or displacing the basic s...

Fig. 1

Facing environmental predictability with different sources of epigenetic variation

Different sources of epigenetic changes can increase the range of phenotypic options. Environmentally induced epigenetic changes and stochastic epimutations are, respectively, associated with phenotypic plasticity and diversifying bet-hedging. Their relative contribution is thus expected to reflect the capacity of a genotype to face distinct changes since these strategies are differentially sel...