The Genetics and Genomics of Local Adaptation and Acclimation in Panicum Grasses

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Co-PIs: Jeremy Schmutz (HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology); Phil Fay (University of Texas Environmental Science Institute)Senior Collaborators: Tim Keitt (University of Texas at Austin); David Lowry (Michigan State University)A major challenge facing the world is the growing demand for energy along with increasing populations and changing environments. Although predictions vary, it is likely that the future will bring alterations to current weather patterns, with impacts on temperature and precipitation in particular. Research is needed to understand how these changes will affect agricultural productivity and to investigate whether the geographical ranges of crops and native plants will shift. This project uses genetic and genomic approaches to discover how the long-lived grass switchgrass and its relatives are able to respond and adapt naturally to environmental stresses in a range of diverse habitats. A major focus of the research is to identify genes involved in local adaptation and drought tolerance across a latitudinal gradient in the US. Ultimately, this information will provide a basis for understanding how plants adapt to varying conditions and will provide tools to engineer stress resistance crops. Undergraduate students will be engaged in the project and will gain hands-on research experiences that span disciplinary and continental boundaries.Although there is compelling evidence for local adaptation in plants, the genetic basis underlying these adaptations is not fully understood. In particular, it is unclear how genetic trade-offs at individual loci underlie the overall pattern of adaptation or the spatial scale of those effects. Moreover, the role of epigenetic "memory" of stress in perennial plants and their long term adaptation is largely unexplored. The integrative research in this project investigates local adaptation and acclimation in Panicum grasses. The specific objectives are to (1) conduct field QTL experiments to test for divergence, local adaptation, and genotype-by-environment interaction in upland and lowland switchgrass ecotypes, (2) fine-map and clone drought tolerance QTL in diploid Panicum hallii, (3) investigate the ecological and molecular drivers of drought legacy effects, and (4) conduct genome scans of climate adaptation in Panicum hallii. Another major goal is to train the next generation of plant scientists through an REU-type program that engages Freshman undergraduate students in research at the start of their education. The findings from this project will facilitate ongoing efforts to engineer crops for higher performance under drought conditions, one of the major limitations in agricultural productivity. All sequence data will be deposited in the NCBI short read archive (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra) and at Phytozome (http://phytozome.jgi.doe.gov/pz/portal.html). Phenotypic and other data will be publicly available through journal publications and the project website (https://sites.cns.utexas.edu/juenger_lab/switchgrass).