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Molecular evidence for adaptive evolution of drought tolerance in wild cereals

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-21, 16:11 authored by Wang, Y, Chen, G, Zeng, F, Han, Z, Qiu, CW, Zeng, M, Yang, Z, Xu, F, Wu, D, Deng, F, Xu, S, Chater, C, Korol, A, Sergey ShabalaSergey Shabala, Wu, F, Franks, P, Nevo, E, Chen, ZH
The considerable drought tolerance of wild cereal crop progenitors has diminished during domestication in the pursuit of higher productivity. Regaining this trait in cereal crops is essential for global food security but requires novel genetic insight. Here, we assessed the molecular evidence for natural variation of drought tolerance in wild barley (Hordeum spontaneum), wild emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccoides), and Brachypodium species collected from dry and moist habitats at Evolution Canyon, Israel (ECI). We report that prevailing moist vs dry conditions have differentially shaped the stomatal and photosynthetic traits of these wild cereals in their respective habitats. We present the genomic and transcriptomic evidence accounting for differences, including co-expression gene modules, correlated with physiological traits, and selective sweeps, driven by the xeric site conditions on the African Slope (AS) at ECI. Co-expression gene module 'circadian rhythm' was linked to significant drought-induced delay in flowering time in Brachypodium stacei genotypes. African Slope-specific differentially expressed genes are important in barley drought tolerance, verified by silencing Disease-Related Nonspecific Lipid Transfer 1 (DRN1), Nonphotochemical Quenching 4 (NPQ4), and Brassinosteroid-Responsive Ring-H1 (BRH1). Our results provide new genetic information for the breeding of resilient wheat and barley in a changing global climate with increasingly frequent drought events.

History

Publication title

The New phytologist

Volume

237

Pagination

497-514

ISSN

1469-8137

Department/School

Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture (TIA)

Publisher

Wiley on behalf of New Phytologist Trust

Place of publication

Oxford

Rights statement

Copyright 2022 The Authors.

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Climate adaptive plants

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