Fig. 5

The comparative analysis of year-round transcriptomics in C. japonica and C. azalea reveals the genes with annual rhythms and their co-expression networks. The identification of rhythmic genes based on four different models based on the year-round gene expression data in C. japonica (a) and C. azalea (b) respectively, and genes with significant correlations (P-value < 0.05) are recovered for each model and common set of genes are identified as the confident candidates of rhythmic genes. The right panel indicates the distribution of acrophase for the common rhythmic genes. In C. japonica, the identification of rhythmic genes in different months is potentially associated with key events including blooming in January to March, spring flush in April and floral bud dormancy from July to December. c The sub-network is identified from the co-expression modules by the WGCNA analysis using all rhythmic genes, in which the genes with important regulatory functions are uncovered from the common set of genes of C. japonica and C. azalea (Table S14) and selected based on connectivity and correlations. The line colors indicate biological pathways related to the candidate genes. Red, floral development; blue, flowering time; yellow, light signaling; gray, other transcription factors. d The identification of genes with eliminated or disrupted annual rhythms between C. japonica and C. azalea. In each panel, the expression levels (TPM) of each candidate gene are scattered as gray dots, and orange (C. japonica) and blue (C. azalea) lines indicate the fitted rhythmic models