Climatic and genetic determinants of biomass production and yield in the temperate model grass Brachypodium distachyon
Conference Year
January 2022
Abstract
Our ability to live sustainably and to mitigate human-driven climate change is becoming increasingly more challenging. Population growth in particular places is increasing pressures on the planet’s freshwater resources, forests, arable land, and air quality, and directly contributes to global warming and environmental sustainability. Plants are important to our environment; they form the basis for the sustainability and long-term health of environmental systems. They are the primary source of renewable and clean energy that can be used as a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. Grasses (Poaceae) comprise the fourth largest family among flowering plants, and not only provide food crops, but also produce biomass that can be harnessed for biofuel production. Most biomass is produced before flowering, which makes flowering time a major determinant of biomass yield. Furthermore, flowering time, biomass, and grain yield are all affected by temperature that is set to increase under global warming. For this project, we propose to study the climatic and genetic determinants for variation in thermal performance across several populations of the model temperate grass Brachypodium distachyon (Pooideae). This will be done by phenotyping diverse genotypes from B. distachyon’s latitudinal and climatic range across a broad series of growing temperatures and quantifying the effect of native climate and relatedness on trait variation. We predict that minimum temperature of the coldest month will be more important for explaining thermal performance than maximum temperature of the warmest month or genetic relatedness. We also predict that days to flowering will be positively correlated with total lifetime dry aboveground biomass and seed yield.
Primary Faculty Mentor Name
Jill Preston
Status
Graduate
Student College
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Program/Major
Plant Biology
Primary Research Category
Biological Sciences
Climatic and genetic determinants of biomass production and yield in the temperate model grass Brachypodium distachyon
Our ability to live sustainably and to mitigate human-driven climate change is becoming increasingly more challenging. Population growth in particular places is increasing pressures on the planet’s freshwater resources, forests, arable land, and air quality, and directly contributes to global warming and environmental sustainability. Plants are important to our environment; they form the basis for the sustainability and long-term health of environmental systems. They are the primary source of renewable and clean energy that can be used as a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. Grasses (Poaceae) comprise the fourth largest family among flowering plants, and not only provide food crops, but also produce biomass that can be harnessed for biofuel production. Most biomass is produced before flowering, which makes flowering time a major determinant of biomass yield. Furthermore, flowering time, biomass, and grain yield are all affected by temperature that is set to increase under global warming. For this project, we propose to study the climatic and genetic determinants for variation in thermal performance across several populations of the model temperate grass Brachypodium distachyon (Pooideae). This will be done by phenotyping diverse genotypes from B. distachyon’s latitudinal and climatic range across a broad series of growing temperatures and quantifying the effect of native climate and relatedness on trait variation. We predict that minimum temperature of the coldest month will be more important for explaining thermal performance than maximum temperature of the warmest month or genetic relatedness. We also predict that days to flowering will be positively correlated with total lifetime dry aboveground biomass and seed yield.