Environment and host genotype determine the outcome of a plant-virus interaction: From antagonism to mutualism

Abstract

It has been hypothesized that plant-virus interactions vary between antagonism and conditional mutualism according to environmental conditions. This hypothesis is based on scant experimental evidence, and to test it we examined the effect of abiotic factors on the Arabidopsis thaliana-Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) interaction. Four Arabidopsis genotypes clustering into two allometric groups were grown under six environments defined by three temperature and two light-intensity conditions. Plants were either CMV-infected or mock-inoculated, and the effects of environment and infection on temporal and resource allocation life-history traits were quantified. Life-history traits significantly differed between allometric groups over all environments, with group 1 plants tolerating abiotic stress better than those of group 2. The effect of CMV infection on host fitness (virulence) differed between genotypes, being lower in group 1 genotypes. Tolerance to abiotic stress and to infection was similarly achieved through life-history trait responses, which resulted in resource reallocation from growth to reproduction. Effects of infection varied according to plant genotype and environment from detrimental to beneficial for host fitness. These results are highly relevant and demonstrate that plant viruses can be pleiotropic parasites along the antagonism-mutualism continuum, which should be considered in analyses of the evolution of plant-virus interactions.