Abstract
In clonal plants producing vegetative offspring by growing vegetative organs, a genetic individual (genet) is constructed by multiple independent plants (ramets), widely distributing in its population. In such a plant species, ramets of the same genotype are exposed to the heterogeneous environment. Therefore, epigenetic variations as well as genetic variations may play important roles to adapt to the fine scale habitat conditions.
In this study, we explored the extent and patterns of DNA methylation in a wild population of a clonal plant Cardamine leucantha, by using the technique of MSAP (methylation-sensitive amplified polymorphism) that makes used of the differential sensitivity of a pair of isoschizomers to cytosine methylation. As a result, the methylation patterns were different between genets even if they were related and/or neighboring genets. Within a single genet, the similarities of methylation depended on the spatial distance between ramet pairs. The correlations between the vegetative coverage reflecting light capture and methylation loci varied from positive to negative, which suggested that such epigenetic variations were beyond wide sites in the genome.
