Phenotyping At Plant And Cell Levels The Quest For Tolerant Crop Development

This Research Topic is part of the Phenotyping at Plant and Cell Levels: The Quest for Tolerant Crop Development series: Phenotyping at Plant and Cell Levels: The Quest for Tolerant Crop Development This Research Topic aims at accelerating the discovery of crop varieties that are able to withstand environmental stresses, via the use of phenotyping approaches at the plant and cellular levels. Climate change is expected to have a drastic impact on agriculture, notably by impacting water availability, precipitations, temperatures, soil nutrients, and the incidence of diseases and pests. A better use of plant genetic resources and plant breeding are key to tackling this challenge from climate change and for food security. Many landraces and wild relatives of crops are conserved in seed and gene banks. These collections are potentially valuable for breeders, but are presently underexploited. Moreover, the contribution of the soil microbiome to enhance the performance of specific plant genotypes has been overlooked. The aim is to generate crops that are resistant against biotic stress or can tolerate abiotic stress without significant impact on their performance. Current studies in the field of sensor technologies and phenomics are mainly empirically based and do not link the phenotypic parameters to the molecular scale. Similarly, many molecular studies do not correlate their findings to the whole plant phenotype. The quantitative high throughput analysis of crop potential and behavior during stress is a form of Genotype x Environment interaction and is a major bottleneck. We urgently need to identify resilient genotypes and to understand the underlying mechanisms of this resilience. Phenotyping science is quickly developing to characterize plant behavior, it's dynamic dimensions, and to quantify features such as growth and stress resilience, which increasingly permit to link the phenotype to genetic control.

Plant phenotyping is the thorough assessment of plant traits such as growth, development, adaptation, yield, quality, tolerance, resistance, architecture, and the basic measurement of individual quantitative parameters that form the basis for understanding of traits. Genetic approaches to understand plant growth and development have always benefitted from phenotyping techniques that are simple, rapid and measurable in units. The forward genetics approach is all about understanding the trait inheritance using the phenotypic data and in most cases it is the mutant phenotypes that formed the basis for understanding of gene functions. With rapid advancement of genotyping techniques, high throughput genotyping has become a reality at costs people never imagined to be that low, but the phenotypic methods did not receive same attention. However, without quality phenotyping data the genotyping data cannot be effectively put to use in plant improvement. Therefore efforts are underway to develop high-throughput phenotyping methods in plants to keep pace with revolutionary advancement in genotyping techniques to enhance the efficiency of crop improvement programs. Keeping this in mind, we described in this book the best phenomic tools available for trait improvement in some of the world’s most important crop plants.

Fully covers the biology, biochemistry, genetics, and genomics of Medicago truncatula Model plant species are valuable not only because they lead to discoveries in basic biology, but also because they provide resources that facilitate translational biology to improve crops of economic importance. Plant scientists are drawn to models because of their ease of manipulation, simple genome organization, rapid life cycles, and the availability of multiple genetic and genomic tools. This reference provides comprehensive coverage of the Model Legume Medicago truncatula. It features review chapters as well as research chapters describing experiments carried out by the authors with clear materials and methods. Most of the chapters utilize advanced molecular techniques and biochemical analyses to approach a variety of aspects of the Model. The Model Legume Medicago truncatula starts with an examination of M. truncatula plant development; biosynthesis of natural products; stress and M. truncatula; and the M. truncatula-Sinorhizobium meliloti symbiosis. Symbiosis of Medicago truncatula with arbuscular mycorrhiza comes next, followed by chapters on the common symbiotic signaling pathway (CSSP or SYM) and infection events in the Rhizobium-legume symbiosis. Other sections look at hormones and the rhizobial and mycorrhizal symbioses; autoregulation of nodule numbers (AON) in M. truncatula; Medicago truncatula databases and computer programs; and more. Contains reviews, original research chapters, and methods Covers most aspects of the M. truncatula Model System, including basic biology, biochemistry, genetics, and genomics of this system Offers molecular techniques and advanced biochemical analyses for approaching a variety of aspects of the Model Legume Medicago truncatula Includes introductions by the editor to each section, presenting the summary of selected chapters in the section Features an extensive index, to facilitate the search for key terms The Model Legume Medicago truncatula is an excellent book for researchers and upper level graduate students in microbial ecology, environmental microbiology, plant genetics and biochemistry. It will also benefit legume biologists, plant molecular biologists, agrobiologists, plant breeders, bioinformaticians, and evolutionary biologists.

The field of proteomics has advanced considerably over the past two decades. The ability to delve deeper into an organism’s proteome, identify an array of post-translational modifications and profile differentially abundant proteins has greatly expanded the utilization of proteomics. Improvements to instrumentation in conjunction with the development of these reproducible workflows have driven the adoption and application of this technology by a wider research community. However, the full potential of proteomics is far from being fully exploited in plant biology and its translational application needs to be further developed. In 2011, a group of plant proteomic researchers established the International Plant Proteomics Organization (INPPO) to advance the utilization of this technology in plants as well as to create a way for plant proteomics researchers to interact, collaborate and exchange ideas. The INPPO conducted its inaugural world congress in mid 2014 at the University of Hamburg (Germany). Plant proteomic researchers from around the world were in attendance and the event marked the maturation of this research community. The Research Topic captures the opinions, ideas and research discussed at the congress and encapsulates the approaches that were being applied in plant proteomics.

Water Scarcity and Sustainable Agriculture in Semiarid Environment: Tools, Strategies and Challenges for Woody Crops explores the complex relationship between water scarcity and climate change, agricultural water-use efficiency, crop-water stress management and modeling water scarcity in woody crops. Understanding these cause- and effect relationships and identifying the most appropriate responses are critical for sustainable crop production. The book focuses on Mediterranean environments to explain how to determine the most appropriate strategy and implement an effective plan; however, core concepts are translational to other regions. Informative for those working in agricultural water management, irrigation and drainage, crop physiology and sustainable agriculture. Focuses on semi-arid crops including olive, vine, citrus, almonds, peach, nectarine, plum, subtropical fruits and others Explores crop physiological responses to drought at plant, cellular and/or molecular levels Presents tool options for assessing crop-water status and irrigation scheduling

As a consequence of the global climate change, both the reduction on yield potential and the available surface area of cultivated species will compromise the production of food needed for a constant growing population. There is consensus about the significant gap between world food consumption projected for the coming decades and the expected crop yield-improvements, which are estimated to be insufficient to meet the demand. The complexity of this scenario will challenge breeders to develop cultivars that are better adapted to adverse environmental conditions, therefore incorporating a new set of morpho-physiological and physico-chemical traits; a large number of these traits have been found to be linked to heat and drought tolerance. Currently, the only reasonable way to satisfy all these demands is through acquisition of high-dimensional phenotypic data (high-throughput phenotyping), allowing researchers with a holistic comprehension of plant responses, or ‘Phenomics’. Phenomics is still under development. This Research Topic aims to be a contribution to the progress of methodologies and analysis to help understand the performance of a genotype in a given environment.