Arabidopsis thaliana strain:Col-0 Genome sequencing

Evolution is fuelled by phenotypic diversity, which is in turn due to underlying heritable genetic (and potentially epigenetic) variation. Whilst environmental factors are well known to influence the accumulation of novel variation in micro-organisms and human cancer cells, the extent to which the natural environment influences the accumulation of novel variation in plants is relatively unknown. Here we use whole-genome and whole-methylome sequencing to test if a specific environmental stress (high-salinity soil) changes the frequency and molecular profile of accumulated mutations and epimutations (changes in cytosine methylation status) in Mutation Accumulation (MA) lineages of Arabidopsis thaliana.