Climate change impacts on crop breeding: Targeting interacting biotic and abiotic stresses for wheat improvement.

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) as a staple crop is closely interwoven into the development of modern society. Its influence on culture and economic development is global. Recent instability in wheat markets has demonstrated its importance in guaranteeing food security across national borders. Climate change threatens food security as it interacts with a multitude of factors impacting wheat production. The challenge needs to be addressed with a multidisciplinary perspective delivered across research, private, and government sectors. Many experimental studies have identified the major biotic and abiotic stresses impacting wheat production, but fewer have addressed the combinations of stresses that occur simultaneously or sequentially during the wheat growth cycle. Here, we argue that biotic and abiotic stress interactions, and the genetics and genomics underlying them, have been insufficiently addressed by the crop science community. We propose this as a reason for the limited transfer of practical and feasible climate adaptation knowledge from research projects into routine farming practice. To address this gap, we propose that novel methodology integration can align large volumes of data available from crop breeding programs with increasingly cheaper omics tools to predict wheat performance under different climate change scenarios. Underlying this is our proposal that breeders design and deliver future wheat ideotypes based on new or enhanced understanding of the genetic and physiological processes that are triggered when wheat is subjected to combinations of stresses. By defining this to a trait and/or genetic level, new insights can be made for yield improvement under future climate conditions.

Capturing Wheat Phenotypes at the Genome Level.

Recent technological advances in next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have dramatically reduced the cost of DNA sequencing, allowing species with large and complex genomes to be sequenced. Although bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the world's most important food crops, efficient exploitation of molecular marker-assisted breeding approaches has lagged behind that achieved in other crop species, due to its large polyploid genome. However, an international public-private effort spanning 9 years reported over 65% draft genome of bread wheat in 2014, and finally, after more than a decade culminated in the release of a gold-standard, fully annotated reference wheat-genome assembly in 2018. Shortly thereafter, in 2020, the genome of assemblies of additional 15 global wheat accessions was released. As a result, wheat has now entered into the pan-genomic era, where basic resources can be efficiently exploited. Wheat genotyping with a few hundred markers has been replaced by genotyping arrays, capable of characterizing hundreds of wheat lines, using thousands of markers, providing fast, relatively inexpensive, and reliable data for exploitation in wheat breeding. These advances have opened up new opportunities for marker-assisted selection (MAS) and genomic selection (GS) in wheat. Herein, we review the advances and perspectives in wheat genetics and genomics, with a focus on key traits, including grain yield, yield-related traits, end-use quality, and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses. We also focus on reported candidate genes cloned and linked to traits of interest. Furthermore, we report on the improvement in the aforementioned quantitative traits, through the use of (i) clustered regularly interspaced short-palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (CRISPR/Cas9)-mediated gene-editing and (ii) positional cloning methods, and of genomic selection. Finally, we examine the utilization of genomics for the next-generation wheat breeding, providing a practical example of using in silico bioinformatics tools that are based on the wheat reference-genome sequence.

Identifying aphid resistance in the ancestral wheat Triticum monococcum under field conditions.

Wheat is an economically, socially, and nutritionally important crop, however, aphid infestation can often reduce wheat yield through feeding and virus transmission. Through field phenotyping, we investigated aphid resistance in ancestral wheat Triticum monococcum (L.). Aphid (Rhopalosiphum padi (L.), Sitobion avenae (F.) and Metopolophium dirhodum (Wlk.)) populations and natural enemy presence (parasitised mummified aphids, ladybird adults and larvae and lacewing eggs and larvae) on two naturally susceptible wheat varieties, Triticum aestivum (L.) var. Solstice and T. monococcum MDR037, and three potentially resistant genotypes T. monococcum MDR657, MDR045 and MDR049 were monitored across three years of field trials. Triticum monococcum MDR045 and MDR049 had smaller aphid populations, whereas MDR657 showed no resistance. Overall, natural enemy presence was positively correlated with aphid populations; however, MDR049 had similar natural enemy presence to MDR037 which is susceptible to aphid infestation. It is hypothesised that alongside reducing aphid population growth, MDR049 also confers indirect resistance by attracting natural enemies. The observed resistance to aphids in MDR045 and MDR049 has strong potential for introgression into commercial wheat varieties, which could have an important role in Integrated Pest Management strategies to reduce aphid populations and virus transmission.

Host plant resistance in wheat to barley yellow dwarf viruses and their aphid vectors: a review.

Cereal aphids are vectors of at least 11 species of Barley Yellow Dwarf Viruses (BYDV) in wheat that alone and/or in combination can cause between 5%-80% grain yield losses. They establish complex virus-vector interactions, with variations in specificity and transmission efficiency that need to be considered for control purposes. In general, these viruses and vectors have a global distribution, however, BYDV-PAV is the most prevalent and abundant virus species worldwide, likely due to its vectoring efficiency and the wide distribution of its primary vector Rhopalosiphum padi. Host plant resistance (HPR) is an environmentally friendly, efficient and cost-effective tool to reduce crop losses to biotic stressors such as aphids and viruses. Finding resistance sources is paramount to breed for HPR. Currently, most of the resistance identified for aphids and BYDV derives from wheat related and wild relative species. However, breeding for HPR to BYDV and its vectors has additional challenges besides the source identification, for example, the lack of selection tools for certain aphid species, which likely prevents the development of elite wheat germplasm carrying resistance to these constraints. Nonetheless, modern technologies such as high-throughput phenotyping, genomic and advanced statistical tools can contribute to make HPR to aphids and BYDV more efficient. In the present review we describe the main sources of resistance, discuss the challenges and opportunities for incorporating the resistance in wheat breeding programs and present a workflow to breed for BYDV and its vectors in wheat.

Unravelling mycorrhiza-induced wheat susceptibility to the English grain aphid Sitobion avenae.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are root symbionts that can increase or decrease aphid growth rates and reproduction, but the reason by which this happens is unknown. To investigate the underlying mechanisms of this interaction, we examined the effect of AM fungi on the English Grain aphid (Sitobion avenae) development, reproduction, attraction, settlement and feeding behaviour on two naturally susceptible varieties Triticum aestivum (L.) variety Solstice and T. monococcum MDR037, and two naturally resistant lines, T. monococcum MDR045 and MDR049. Mycorrhizal colonisation increased the attractiveness of T. aestivum var. Solstice to aphids, but there was no effect on aphid development on this variety. Using the Electrical Penetration Graph (EPG) technique, we found that mycorrhizal colonisation increased aphid phloem feeding on T. monococcum MDR037 and MDR045, colonisation also increased growth rate and reproductive success of S. avenae on these varieties. Mycorrhizas increased vascular bundle size, demonstrating that these fungi can influence plant anatomy. We discuss if and how this could be related to an enhanced success rate in phloem feeding in two varieties. Overall, we present and discuss how mycorrhizal fungi can affect the feeding behaviour of S. avenae in wheat, inducing susceptibility in a resistant variety.

The first crop plant genetically engineered to release an insect pheromone for defence.

Insect pheromones offer potential for managing pests of crop plants. Volatility and instability are problems for deployment in agriculture but could be solved by expressing genes for the biosynthesis of pheromones in the crop plants. This has now been achieved by genetically engineering a hexaploid variety of wheat to release (E)-ß-farnesene (Eßf), the alarm pheromone for many pest aphids, using a synthetic gene based on a sequence from peppermint with a plastid targeting amino acid sequence, with or without a gene for biosynthesis of the precursor farnesyl diphosphate. Pure Eßf was produced in stably transformed wheat lines with no other detectable phenotype but requiring targeting of the gene produced to the plastid. In laboratory behavioural assays, three species of cereal aphids were repelled and foraging was increased for a parasitic natural enemy. Although these studies show considerable potential for aphid control, field trials employing the single and double constructs showed no reduction in aphids or increase in parasitism. Insect numbers were low and climatic conditions erratic suggesting the need for further trials or a closer imitation, in the plant, of alarm pheromone release.

Delivering sustainable crop protection systems via the seed: exploiting natural constitutive and inducible defence pathways.

To reduce the need for seasonal inputs, crop protection will have to be delivered via the seed and other planting material. Plant secondary metabolism can be harnessed for this purpose by new breeding technologies, genetic modification and companion cropping, the latter already on-farm in sub-Saharan Africa. Secondary metabolites offer the prospect of pest management as robust as that provided by current pesticides, for which many lead compounds were, or are currently deployed as, natural products. Evidence of success and promise is given for pest management in industrial and developing agriculture. Additionally, opportunities for solving wider problems of sustainable crop protection, and also production, are discussed.

Permanent Genetic Resources added to Molecular Ecology Resources Database 1 June 2010 - 31 July 2010.

This article documents the addition of 205 microsatellite marker loci to the Molecular Ecology Resources Database. Loci were developed for the following species: Bagassa guianensis, Bulweria bulwerii, Camelus bactrianus, Chaenogobius annularis, Creontiades dilutus, Diachasmimorpha tryoni, Dioscorea alata, Euhrychiopsis lecontei, Gmelina arborea, Haliotis discus hannai, Hirtella physophora, Melanaphis sacchari, Munida isos, Thaumastocoris peregrinus and Tuberolachnus salignus. These loci were cross-tested on the following species: Halobaena caerulea, Procellaria aequinoctialis, Oceanodroma monteiroi, Camelus ferus, Creontiades pacificus, Dioscorea rotundata, Dioscorea praehensilis, Dioscorea abyssinica, Dioscorea nummularia, Dioscorea transversa, Dioscorea esculenta, Dioscorea pentaphylla, Dioscorea trifida, Hirtella bicornis, Hirtella glandulosa, Licania alba, Licania canescens, Licania membranaceae, Couepia guianensis and 7 undescribed Thaumastocoris species.