The interplay between the effectiveness of the grass-endophyte mutualism and the genetic variability of the host plant

• Autores: Gundel, Pedro Emilio; Omacini, Marina; Sadras, Victor Oscar; Ghersa, Claudio Marco
• Año de publicación: 2010
• Idioma: inglés
• Tipo de recurso: artículo
• Fuente: Evolutionary Applications; Vol.3, no.5-6; 538-546; http://www.wiley.com/
• Materia: EPICHLOE; GENETIC SPECIFICITY; MUTUALISM EFFECTIVENESS; NEOTYPHODIUM ENDOPHYTE; SPECIES INTERACTIONS; SYMBIOSIS; TRANSMISSION EFFICIENCY
• Institución: Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía

Fil: Gundel, Pedro Emilio. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura (IFEVA). Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Fil: Gundel, Pedro Emilio. CONICET – Universidad de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura (IFEVA). Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Fil: Gundel, Pedro Emilio. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambiente. Cátedra de Ecología. Buenso Aires, Argentina.
Fil: Omacini, Marina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura (IFEVA). Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Fil: Omacini, Marina. CONICET – Universidad de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura (IFEVA). Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Fil: Omacini, Marina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambiente. Cátedra de Ecología. Buenso Aires, Argentina.
Fil: Sadras, Victor Oscar. South Australian Research and Development Institute. Adelaide, Australia.
Fil: Ghersa, Claudio Marco. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura (IFEVA). Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Fil: Ghersa, Claudio Marco. CONICET – Universidad de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura (IFEVA). Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Fil: Ghersa, Claudio Marco. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Departamento de Recursos Naturales y Ambiente. Cátedra de Ecología. Buenso Aires, Argentina.
Neotyphodium endophytic fungi, the asexual state of Epichloë species, protect cool-season grasses against stresses. The outcomes of Neotyphodium-grass symbioses are agronomically relevant as they may affect the productivity of pastures. It has been suggested that the mutualism is characteristic of agronomic grasses and that differential rates of gene flow between both partners' populations are expected to disrupt the specificity of the association and, thus, the mutualism in wild grasses. We propose that compatibility is necessary but not sufficient to explain the outcomes of Neotyphodium-grass symbiosis, and advance a model that links genetic compatibility, mutualism effectiveness, and endophyte transmission efficiency. For endophytes that reproduce clonally and depend on allogamous hosts for reproduction and dissemination, we propose that this symbiosis works as an integrated entity where gene flow promotes its fitness and evolution. Compatibility between the host plant and the fungal endophyte would be high in genetically close parents; however, mutualism effectiveness and transmission efficiency would be low in fitness depressed host plants. Increasing the genetic distance of mating parents would increase mutualism effectiveness and transmission efficiency. This tendency would be broken when the genetic distance between parents is high (out-breeding depression). Our model allows for testable hypotheses that would contribute to understand the coevolutionary origin and future of the endophyte-grass mutualism.