Yang, J., Fan, H., He, Y., Wang, G., Cao, M. and Swenson, N.G., (2024). Functional genomics and co‐occurrence in a diverse tropical tree genus: The roles of drought‐and defence‐related genes. Journal of Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.14255
Abstract
- Tropical tree communities are among the most diverse in the world. A small number of genera often disproportionately contribute to this diversity. How so many species from a single genus can co-occur represents a major outstanding question in biology. Niche differences are likely to play a major role in promoting congeneric diversity, but the mechanisms of interest are often not well-characterized by the set of functional traits generally measured by ecologists.
- To address this knowledge gap, we used a functional genomic approach to investigate the mechanisms of co-occurrence in the hyper-diverse genus Ficus. Our study focused on over 800 genes related to drought and defence, providing detailed information on how these genes may contribute to the diversity of Ficus species.
- We find widespread and consistent evidence of the importance of defence gene dissimilarity in co-occurring species, providing genetic support for what would be expected under the Janzen-Connell mechanism. We also find that drought-related gene sequence similarity is related to Ficus co-occurrence, indicating that similar responses to drought promote co-occurrence.
- Synthesis. We provide the first detailed functional genomic evidence of how drought- and defence-related genes simultaneously contribute to the local co-occurrence in a hyper-diverse genus. Our results demonstrate the potential of community transcriptomics to identify the drivers of species co-occurrence in hyper-diverse tropical tree genera.
For more details on papers published from this group, click here.