Transcriptional WGP involves DE and AS mechanisms
Since significant DE genes and AS genes show different transcriptional patterns in acclimation treatments and life stages, we next explored the relative contributions of AS and DE genes as well as their associated ontology functions independently for the effects of acclimation performed in the offspring (WGP) and the parental generation (TGP). For WGP, we found that in addition to DE genes, AS genes account for a great part of transcriptional plasticity. In larva samples, we found 1028 DE genes and 1609 AS genes associated with WGP, while 611 DE genes and 507 AS genes are associated with WGP in adults (Figure 2c, 2d, and 3a). The majority of these genes differ between mechanisms of transcriptional change, with less than 4 % overlapping genes between DE and AS (Figure 2a). Similarly, the majority of genes responding to WGP differ between life stages, as only 8 % of the genes responding to WGP overlapped between larvae and adults (Figures 2c, 2d, and 3a).