The discovery of a “keystone gene' may have implications for how scientists think about the ways ecosystems, and the species in them, persist over time.
Some species play an outsize role in the environment they inhabit. Beavers build dams that create ponds where fish thrive. Otters in kelp forests eat enough sea urchins so that the kelp can grow without being gobbled up first. These so-called keystone species hold their ecosystem together.
Each bread-box-sized ecosystem contained multiple Arabidopsis plants. In some systems, the plants were genetically identical—a monoculture. In others, genetic variations were introduced by turning on and off three genes—MAM1, AOP2 and GSOH—in various combinations.The researchers focused on these genes because they maintain the production of compounds called aliphatic glucosinolates, which protect the plant by deterring hungry aphids.
Also surprising was the mechanism by which the AOP2 allele impacted the aphids. Although the variant changed the way a plant produced its aphid-deterring compound, it also allowed the plant to grow faster. This in turn allowed the aphids, as well as the wasps that relied on them for food, to become larger faster. “The aphids that feed on the plant are actually able to get bigger, and they’re able to reproduce more quickly, so their populations are able to grow faster,” Barbour explains.
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