Genetic and epigenetic variation in Spartina alterniflora following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Catastrophic events offer unique opportunities to study rapid population response to stress in natural settings. In concert with genetic variation, epigenetic mechanisms like DNA methylation may offer a mechanism of rapid response to organisms facing severe environmental challenges, and contribute to the high resilience of species like Spartina alterniflora, a foundation salt marsh grass which shows resilience to strong environmental disturbance. In 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill devastated large portions of the coastline along the Gulf of Mexico. Following the spill, we simultaneously examined the genetic and epigenetic structure of recovering populations of S. alterniflora to oil exposure. We quantified genetic and DNA methylation variation using AFLP and MS-AFLP to test the hypothesis that response to oil exposure in S. alterniflora resulted in genetically and epigenetically based population differentiation. We found high genetic and epigenetic variation within and among sites...