Genetics of Crop Plants Adaptation to Abiotic Stress

A special issue of Biology (ISSN 2079-7737). This special issue belongs to the section "Genetics and Genomics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2021) | Viewed by 3653

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
1. Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
2. ARC Centre of Excellence for Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
Interests: genomics; transcriptomics; plant adaptation; wild crop relatives; output traits
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Food security is dependent upon crop production in many highly variable environments globally. Understanding the genetic basis of plant adaptation to abiotic stress is central to the breeding of climate resilient crops.  Abiotic stress that may limit plant performance include, temperature (heat and cold stress), drought, flooding and nutrient limitation or excess and the presence of air or soil toxins. Genomic analysis provides a powerful tool to reveal the complex networks of plant response to these diverse stresses.  This issue will describe studies of plant responses to abiotic stress that will inform understanding of plant adaptation and survival in nature and agriculture. This research is central to conservation of plant biodiversity and the adaptation of agriculture to climate change. The special issue will include reviews of plants adapted to survival in extreme or highly variable environments. Abiotic stress may not only impact on plant performance but may also alter the composition of foods produced from stressed crops. This special issue will include studies of the impact of abiotic stress on the quality including nutritional and health properties of foods. We need to develop technologies to allow the continued production of food in both high quantity and of high quality under stress. Strategies for crop adaptation include genomic selection, introgression from diverse or wild germplasm and genetic modification.

Prof. Robert Henry
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • abiotic stress
  • heat
  • cold
  • drought
  • nutrient
  • nutritional quality
  • genomics
  • transcriptomics

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Review

18 pages, 1991 KiB  
Review
Drought Tolerance and Application of Marker-Assisted Selection in Sorghum
by Andekelile Mwamahonje, John Saviour Yaw Eleblu, Kwadwo Ofori, Santosh Deshpande, Tileye Feyissa and Pangirayi Tongoona
Biology 2021, 10(12), 1249; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/biology10121249 - 30 Nov 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2917
Abstract
Sorghum is an important staple food crop in drought prone areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, which is characterized by erratic rainfall with poor distribution. Sorghum is a drought-tolerant crop by nature with reasonable yield compared to other cereal crops, but such abiotic stress adversely [...] Read more.
Sorghum is an important staple food crop in drought prone areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, which is characterized by erratic rainfall with poor distribution. Sorghum is a drought-tolerant crop by nature with reasonable yield compared to other cereal crops, but such abiotic stress adversely affects the productivity. Some sorghum varieties maintain green functional leaves under post-anthesis drought stress referred to as stay-green, which makes it an important crop for food and nutritional security. Notwithstanding, it is difficult to maintain consistency of tolerance over time due to climate change, which is caused by human activities. Drought in sorghum is addressed by several approaches, for instance, breeding drought-tolerant sorghum using conventional and molecular technologies. The challenge with conventional methods is that they depend on phenotyping stay-green, which is complex in sorghum, as it is constituted by multiple genes and environmental effects. Marker assisted selection, which involves the use of DNA molecular markers to map QTL associated with stay-green, has been useful to supplement stay-green improvement in sorghum. It involves QTL mapping associated with the stay-green trait for introgression into the senescent sorghum varieties through marker-assisted backcrossing by comparing with phenotypic field data. Therefore, this review discusses mechanisms of drought tolerance in sorghum focusing on physiological, morphological, and biochemical traits. In addition, the review discusses the application of marker-assisted selection techniques, including marker-assisted backcrossing, QTL mapping, and QTL pyramiding for addressing post-flowering drought in sorghum. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Genetics of Crop Plants Adaptation to Abiotic Stress)
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