Population genomics of selectively neutral genetic structure and herbicide resistance in UK populations of Alopecurus myosuroides

Background: Alopecurus myosuroides (blackgrass) is a major weed in Europe with known resistance to multiple herbicide modes of action. In the UK, there is evidence that blackgrass has undergone a range expansion. In this paper, genotyping-by-sequencing and population-level herbicide resistance phenotypes are used to explore spatial patterns of selectively neutral genetic variation and resistance. We also perform a preliminary genome-wide association study (GWAS) and genomic prediction analysis to evaluate the potential of these approaches for investigating nontarget site herbicide resistance.

Results: Blackgrass was collected from 47 fields across the British Isles and up to eight plants per field population (n = 369) were genotyped by Restriction site-associated DNA (RAD)-sequencing. A total of 20 426 polymorphic loci were identified and used for population genetic analyses. Phenotypic assays revealed significant variation in herbicide resistance between populations. Population structure was weak (F_ST = 0.024-0.048), but spatial patterns were consistent with an ongoing westward and northward range expansion. We detected strong and consistent Wahlund effects (F_IS = 0.30). There were no spatial patterns of herbicide resistance or evidence for confounding with population structure. Using a combination of population-level GWAS and genomic prediction we found that the top 20, 200, and 2000 GWAS loci had higher predictive abilities for fenoxaprop resistance compared to all markers.

Conclusion: There is likely extensive human-mediated gene flow between field populations of the weed blackgrass at a national scale. The lack of confounding of adaptive and neutral genetic variation can enable future, more extensive GWAS analyses to identify the genetic architecture of evolved herbicide resistance. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry.