Search for Articles:
Title / Keyword
Author / Affiliation / Email
Journal
Article Type
 
 
Advanced Search
 
Section
Special Issue
Volume
Issue
Number
Page
 
5.4
4.5
Journals
Plants
Special Issues
Plants for Extreme and Changing Environments: Domestication, Evolution, Crop Breeding...
share announcement

Plants for Extreme and Changing Environments: Domestication, Evolution, Crop Breeding and Genetics

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Crop Physiology and Crop Production".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 December 2022) | Viewed by 19232

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Freddy Mora-Poblete

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Talca, 1 Poniente 1141, Talca 3465548, Chile
Interests: breeding science; quantitative genetics; GWAS; genomic and phenomic prediction
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Eliemar Campostrini

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Plant Physiology Lab, Ecophysiology of Tropical and Subtropical Crops, Northern Rio de Janeiro State University, Campos dos Goytacazes 28013-602, RJ, Brazil
Interests: photosynthesis; water relations; ecophysiology of tropical and subtropical plants; environmental plant physiology; crop physiology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Extreme environments present various stressors for plants, including extreme levels of radiation, water availability (drought, floods, and submersion), salinity, temperatures (heat, cold, freezing), chemical factors (metals and pH), and combinations thereof. On the other hand, climate change has many consequences for plants, altering ecosystems around the world, including agricultural production systems, challenging researchers to design adaptation strategies. In general, the abiotic conditions present in extreme and changing environments are the main limiting factors for the development and productivity of crops, as well as for the species distribution in natural plant ecosystems.

This Special Issue aims to explore new insights into domestication processes, evolution, crop breeding, and/or genetics in plants facing diverse challenges from extreme and changing environments. We welcome reviews, perspectives, original research articles, and short communications that focus on advances related to the aforementioned issues.

Prof. Dr. Freddy Mora-Poblete
Prof. Dr. Eliemar Campostrini
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Plants is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • extreme environments (hypersaline, cold, hot, etc.)
  • climate change
  • genetic diversity and structure
  • breeding, genomics
  • crop (re) domestication
  • plant evolution
  • deserts and drylands
  • environments altered by humans

Published Papers (7 papers)

Download All Papers
Order results
Result details
Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

Jump to: Review

15 pages, 1430 KiB  
Article
Spectral-Based Classification of Genetically Differentiated Groups in Spring Wheat Grown under Contrasting Environments
by Paulina Ballesta, Carlos Maldonado, Freddy Mora-Poblete, Daniel Mieres-Castro, Alejandro del Pozo and Gustavo A. Lobos
Plants 2023, 12(3), 440; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12030440 - 18 Jan 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1446
Abstract
The global concern about the gap between food production and consumption has intensified the research on the genetics, ecophysiology, and breeding of cereal crops. In this sense, several genetic studies have been conducted to assess the effectiveness and sustainability of collections of germplasm [...] Read more.
The global concern about the gap between food production and consumption has intensified the research on the genetics, ecophysiology, and breeding of cereal crops. In this sense, several genetic studies have been conducted to assess the effectiveness and sustainability of collections of germplasm accessions of major crops. In this study, a spectral-based classification approach for the assignment of wheat cultivars to genetically differentiated subpopulations (genetic structure) was carried out using a panel of 316 spring bread cultivars grown in two environments with different water regimes (rainfed and fully irrigated). For that, different machine-learning models were trained with foliar spectral and genetic information to assign the wheat cultivars to subpopulations. The results revealed that, in general, the hyperparameters ReLU (as the activation function), adam (as the optimizer), and a size batch of 10 give neural network models better accuracy. Genetically differentiated groups showed smaller differences in mean wavelengths under rainfed than under full irrigation, which coincided with a reduction in clustering accuracy in neural network models. The comparison of models indicated that the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) was significantly more accurate in classifying individuals into their respective subpopulations, with 92 and 93% of correct individual assignments in water-limited and fully irrigated environments, respectively, whereas 92% (full irrigation) and 78% (rainfed) of cultivars were correctly assigned to their respective classes by the multilayer perceptron method and partial least squares discriminant analysis, respectively. Notably, CNN did not show significant differences between both environments, which indicates stability in the prediction independent of the different water regimes. It is concluded that foliar spectral variation can be used to accurately infer the belonging of a cultivar to its respective genetically differentiated group, even considering radically different environments, which is highly desirable in the context of crop genetic resources management. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plants for Extreme and Changing Environments: Domestication, Evolution, Crop Breeding and Genetics)
►▼ Show Figures

Graphical abstract

12 pages, 1625 KiB  
Article
Germination Response of Datura stramonium L. to Different pH and Salinity Levels under Different Temperature Conditions
by Nebojša Nikolić, Valentina Šoštarčić, Laura Pismarović, Maja Šćepanović and Roberta Masin
Plants 2022, 11(23), 3259; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants11233259 - 27 Nov 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1482
Abstract
Weeds can be one of the most severe threats to crop production, especially when they are widespread and highly adaptable. Part of the adaptive strategy of plants is the ability to germinate in different conditions. Germination is the first developmental phase of plant [...] Read more.
Weeds can be one of the most severe threats to crop production, especially when they are widespread and highly adaptable. Part of the adaptive strategy of plants is the ability to germinate in different conditions. Germination is the first developmental phase of plant life and is fundamental for its establishment. In this work, the germination of two populations of Datura stramonium L. at two different sites in Croatia (one cropped, the other non-agricultural) was tested under a wide range of salinity stress, 4, 8, 12, and 16 dS/m, and pH stress, values 1–9, at two temperature ranges of 15–25 °C and 18–30 °C. The results show that this species can tolerate high salinity, with a high number of seeds germinating, even under the highest level of saline stress and especially at higher temperatures: 21.7% of seeds germinated at 15–25 °C and 51.2% at 18–30 °C. D. stramonium also appears to be quite acid tolerant, with a significant reduction in germination only at pH 2, and no germination only at pH 1. Germination was always higher at higher temperatures, independently of abiotic stress. Although there were some differences between the two populations in the final germination percentages, they were similar in their responses to the abiotic stresses. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plants for Extreme and Changing Environments: Domestication, Evolution, Crop Breeding and Genetics)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

13 pages, 481 KiB  
Article
Genetic Behavior of Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) Germplasm Governing Heavy Metal Tolerance and Yield Traits under Wastewater Irrigation
by Shameem Raja, Fozia Farhat, Arneeb Tariq, Zaffar Malik, Rana Badar Aziz, Muhamamd Kamran, Mohsen Mohamed Elsharkawy, Asif Ali, Abdulrahman Al-Hashimi and Mohamed S. Elshikh
Plants 2022, 11(21), 2973; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants11212973 - 03 Nov 2022
Viewed by 1424
Abstract
Wastewater irrigation is a substitute for surface water scarcity, but traces of heavy metals (HMs) result in deleterious implications for soil, crop productivity, and in humans. Crops presenting HMs tolerance in genetic behavior are important for producing tolerant genotypes cultivated under wastewater irrigation. [...] Read more.
Wastewater irrigation is a substitute for surface water scarcity, but traces of heavy metals (HMs) result in deleterious implications for soil, crop productivity, and in humans. Crops presenting HMs tolerance in genetic behavior are important for producing tolerant genotypes cultivated under wastewater irrigation. In the first part of this experiment, the results obtained previously are re-assessed in a hydroponic system and similar patterns and concentrations of HMs are found in different tomato organs. Following this trial, the tomato’s (Solanum lycopersicum L.) genetic basis of traits conferring HMs tolerance and yield are assessed when irrigated with waste or canal water. The North Carolina Mating II analysis illustrate the amount of gene action, nature, and inheritance pattern. Genetic components depict the involvement of non-additive, additive, and maternal genetic effects in HMs tolerance inheritance and yield. A noticeable increase in cumulative additive variance for the number of flowers (11,907.2) and the number of fruits (10,557.9) is recorded for tomato plants irrigated with wastewater, illustrating additive gene action. However, female and male (MSf/MSm) square ratios also show an association with cytoplasmic inheritance. For HMs tolerance, both additive and dominant variances appeared to be significant; cumulative dominance variance (4.83, 16.1, 4.69, 76.95, and 249.37) is higher compared to additive variance (0.18, 2.36, 0.19, −0.27, and 14.14) for nickel (Ni), chromium (Cr), lead (Pb), manganese (Mn), and zinc (Zn), respectively, indicating dominance gene action. The genotype RIOGRANDI accumulated and translocated fewer HMs to the aerial part of the plant compared to CLN-2418A and PB-017906, thus presenting a tolerant tomato genotype according to the hydroponic experiment. This also exhibited a differential pattern of gene action for HMs tolerance, suggesting that genotypes possess significant differences for HMs tolerance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plants for Extreme and Changing Environments: Domestication, Evolution, Crop Breeding and Genetics)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

20 pages, 4776 KiB  
Article
All Are in a Drought, but Some Stand Out: Multivariate Analysis in the Selection of Agronomic Efficient Popcorn Genotypes
by Jhean Torres Leite, Antônio Teixeira do Amaral Junior, Samuel Henrique Kamphorst, Valter Jário de Lima, Divino Rosa dos Santos Junior, Uéliton Oliveira Alves, Valdinei Cruz Azeredo, Jacymara Lopes Pereira, Rosimeire Barboza Bispo, Katia Fabiane Medeiros Schmidt, Flávia Nicácio Viana, Alexandre Pio Viana, Henrique Duarte Vieira, Helaine Christine Cancela Ramos, Rodrigo Moreira Ribeiro and Eliemar Campostrini
Plants 2022, 11(17), 2275; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants11172275 - 31 Aug 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1212
Abstract
The search for productive germplasm adapted to adverse conditions is an important action to mitigate the harmful effects of climate change. The aim was to identify the yield potential of 50 popcorn inbred lines grown in field conditions, in two crop seasons (CS), [...] Read more.
The search for productive germplasm adapted to adverse conditions is an important action to mitigate the harmful effects of climate change. The aim was to identify the yield potential of 50 popcorn inbred lines grown in field conditions, in two crop seasons (CS), and under contrasting water conditions (WC). Morphoagronomic, physiological, and root system traits were evaluated. Joint and individual analyses of variance were performed, in addition to the multivariate GT bip-lot analysis. Expressive reductions between WC were observed in 100-grain weight (100 GW), popping expansion (PE), grain yield (GY), expanded popcorn volume per ha (EPV), row number per ear (RNE), plant height (PH), relative chlorophyll content (SPAD), and nitrogen balance index (NBI). It was found that the SPAD, 100 GW, GY, PE, and grain number per ear (GNE) traits had the most significant impact on the selection of genotypes. Regardless of WC and CS, the ideal lines were L294 and L688 for PE; L691 and L480 for GY; and L291 and L292 for both traits. SPAD, 100 GW, and GNE can contribute to the indirect selection. Our work contributes to understanding the damage caused by drought and the integration of traits for the indirect selection of drought-tolerant popcorn genotypes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plants for Extreme and Changing Environments: Domestication, Evolution, Crop Breeding and Genetics)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

18 pages, 27142 KiB  
Article
Proteomic Profiling and Rhizosphere-Associated Microbial Communities Reveal Adaptive Mechanisms of Dioclea apurensis Kunth in Eastern Amazon’s Rehabilitating Minelands
by Sidney Vasconcelos do Nascimento, Paulo Henrique de Oliveira Costa, Hector Herrera, Cecílio Frois Caldeira, Markus Gastauer, Silvio Junio Ramos, Guilherme Oliveira and Rafael Borges da Silva Valadares
Plants 2022, 11(5), 712; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants11050712 - 07 Mar 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2353
Abstract
Dioclea apurensis Kunth is native to ferruginous rocky outcrops (known as canga) in the eastern Amazon. Native cangas are considered hotspots of biological diversity and have one of the largest iron ore deposits in the world. There, D. apurensis can grow in [...] Read more.
Dioclea apurensis Kunth is native to ferruginous rocky outcrops (known as canga) in the eastern Amazon. Native cangas are considered hotspots of biological diversity and have one of the largest iron ore deposits in the world. There, D. apurensis can grow in post-mining areas where molecular mechanisms and rhizospheric interactions with soil microorganisms are expected to contribute to their establishment in rehabilitating minelands (RM). In this study, we compare the root proteomic profile and rhizosphere-associated bacterial and fungal communities of D. apurensis growing in canga and RM to characterize the main mechanisms that allow the growth and establishment in post-mining areas. The results showed that proteins involved in response to oxidative stress, drought, excess of iron, and phosphorus deficiency showed higher levels in canga and, therefore, helped explain its high establishment rates in RM. Rhizospheric selectivity of microorganisms was more evident in canga. The microbial community structure was mostly different between the two habitats, denoting that despite having its preferences, D. apurensis can associate with beneficial soil microorganisms without specificity. Therefore, its good performance in RM can also be improved or attributed to its ability to cope with beneficial soil-borne microorganisms. Native plants with such adaptations must be used to enhance the rehabilitation process. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plants for Extreme and Changing Environments: Domestication, Evolution, Crop Breeding and Genetics)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

26 pages, 3448 KiB  
Article
PGPR-Mediated Salt Tolerance in Maize by Modulating Plant Physiology, Antioxidant Defense, Compatible Solutes Accumulation and Bio-Surfactant Producing Genes
by Baber Ali, Xiukang Wang, Muhammad Hamzah Saleem, Sumaira, Aqsa Hafeez, Muhammad Siddique Afridi, Shahid Khan, Zaib-Un-Nisa, Izhar Ullah, Antônio Teixeira do Amaral Júnior, Aishah Alatawi and Shafaqat Ali
Plants 2022, 11(3), 345; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants11030345 - 27 Jan 2022
Cited by 127 | Viewed by 8058
Abstract
Salinity stress is a barrier to crop production, quality yield, and sustainable agriculture. The current study investigated the plant growth promotion, biochemical and molecular characterization of bacterial strain Enterobacter cloacae PM23 under salinity stress (i.e., 0, 300, 600, and 900 mM). E. cloacae [...] Read more.
Salinity stress is a barrier to crop production, quality yield, and sustainable agriculture. The current study investigated the plant growth promotion, biochemical and molecular characterization of bacterial strain Enterobacter cloacae PM23 under salinity stress (i.e., 0, 300, 600, and 900 mM). E. cloacae PM23 showed tolerance of up to 3 M NaCl when subjected to salinity stress. Antibiotic-resistant Iturin C (ItuC) and bio-surfactant-producing genes (sfp and srfAA) were amplified in E. cloacae PM23, indicating its multi-stress resistance potential under biotic and abiotic stresses. Moreover, the upregulation of stress-related genes (APX and SOD) helped to mitigate salinity stress and improved plant growth. Inoculation of E. cloacae PM23 enhanced plant growth, biomass, and photosynthetic pigments under salinity stress. Bacterial strain E. cloacae PM23 showed distinctive salinity tolerance and plant growth-promoting traits such as indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), siderophore, ACC deaminase, and exopolysaccharides production under salinity stress. To alleviate salinity stress, E. cloacae PM23 inoculation enhanced radical scavenging capacity, relative water content, soluble sugars, proteins, total phenolic, and flavonoid content in maize compared to uninoculated (control) plants. Moreover, elevated levels of antioxidant enzymes and osmoprotectants (Free amino acids, glycine betaine, and proline) were noticed in E. cloacae PM23 inoculated plants compared to control plants. The inoculation of E. cloacae PM23 significantly reduced oxidative stress markers under salinity stress. These findings suggest that multi-stress tolerant E. cloacae PM23 could enhance plant growth by mitigating salt stress and provide a baseline and ecofriendly approach to address salinity stress for sustainable agriculture. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plants for Extreme and Changing Environments: Domestication, Evolution, Crop Breeding and Genetics)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

Review

Jump to: Research

9 pages, 475 KiB  
Review
Pangenomics and Crop Genome Adaptation in a Changing Climate
by Jakob Petereit, Philipp E. Bayer, William J. W. Thomas, Cassandria G. Tay Fernandez, Junrey Amas, Yueqi Zhang, Jacqueline Batley and David Edwards
Plants 2022, 11(15), 1949; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants11151949 - 27 Jul 2022
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2056
Abstract
During crop domestication and breeding, wild plant species have been shaped into modern high-yield crops and adapted to the main agro-ecological regions. However, climate change will impact crop productivity in these regions, and agriculture needs to adapt to support future food production. On [...] Read more.
During crop domestication and breeding, wild plant species have been shaped into modern high-yield crops and adapted to the main agro-ecological regions. However, climate change will impact crop productivity in these regions, and agriculture needs to adapt to support future food production. On a global scale, crop wild relatives grow in more diverse environments than crop species, and so may host genes that could support the adaptation of crops to new and variable environments. Through identification of individuals with increased climate resilience we may gain a greater understanding of the genomic basis for this resilience and transfer this to crops. Pangenome analysis can help to identify the genes underlying stress responses in individuals harbouring untapped genomic diversity in crop wild relatives. The information gained from the analysis of these pangenomes can then be applied towards breeding climate resilience into existing crops or to re-domesticating crops, combining environmental adaptation traits with crop productivity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Plants for Extreme and Changing Environments: Domestication, Evolution, Crop Breeding and Genetics)
►▼ Show Figures

Figure 1

Show export options expand_more Show export options expand_less
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:
 
Displaying articles 1-7
Back to TopTop