NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2019: The Genetic Architecture of Hydraulic and Whole-plant Performance Under Cold Temperatures in Sunflower

本行动资助NSF国家植物基因组计划2019财年生物学博士后研究奖学金。该奖学金支持奖学金获得者在主办实验室的研究和培训计划，该奖学金获得者还提出了扩大生物学参与的计划。Jared J. Stewart博士的研究和培训计划的标题是“向日葵在低温下水力和全株性能的遗传结构”。该奖学金的主办机构是USDA-ARS水管理和系统研究单位（Fort Collins， CO），科罗拉多大学博尔德分校和USDA-ARS向日葵和植物生物学研究单位（Fargo， ND）。分别是肖恩·m·格里森，诺兰·c·凯恩和布伦特·s·胡尔克。向日葵是全球最广泛生产的油料作物之一。在美国，许多产向日葵最多的州在晚春时节都会遭遇罕见的低温。这些冻融事件通过对植物输水系统的巨大影响，对农业生产力构成相当大的威胁。本项目旨在通过鉴定在寒冷条件下赋予普通向日葵优越性能的性状和基因来解决这一问题。由于这个综合项目将在两个具有互补任务的USDA-ARS机构以及一所公立大学进行，因此这项工作的结果将有利于跨多个应用和基础学科的持续努力。此外，该实验模型也适用于其他作物，这些作物生长在预期生长季节经常发生冻融事件的地区。该项目的培训目标包括水力性状的特征，鉴定相关性状的遗传基础，以及开发高效鉴定优良作物品系的高通量方法。在这个项目中，更广泛的影响活动将包括对本科生和研究生的培训和指导，以及在科罗拉多州北部的K-12公立学校和大学的教育推广。面对气候变化，为了满足农业需求，必须确定在次优环境条件下允许优越植物性能的植物功能性状和潜在遗传学。本项目将通过描述向日葵在低温下与高光合和全株生产力相关的水力功能的遗传结构，为实现这一目标做出贡献。相关的解剖和功能特征将在不同温度下生长的植物在气候控制的生长室以及在大规模的田间试验中生长的植物中进行表征。这些结果将用于通过靶向和全基因组关联定位技术识别适应性位点。该项目将以300多种普通向日葵为特色，包括向日葵协会测绘（SAM）种群，它涵盖了90%的栽培向日葵的等位基因多样性，以及来自其原生范围多样性气候的野生向日葵。将野生材料的表型和基因型数据与各自原产地的气候数据进行比较，以提供生态和进化相关性，这可以指导未来在气候异常具有挑战性的地区进行育种工作。这些研究的表型数据将通过向日葵基因组数据库（https://www.sunflowergenome.org）提供，基因型数据将通过NCBI短读档案数据库（https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra）.Keywords)提供。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，认为值得支持。

This action funds an NSF National Plant Genome Initiative Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2019. The fellowship supports a research and training plan in a host laboratory for the Fellow who also presents a plan to broaden participation in biology. The title of the research and training plan for this fellowship to Dr. Jared J. Stewart is "The Genetic Architecture of Hydraulic and Whole-plant Performance Under Cold Temperature in Sunflower". The host institutions for the fellowship are USDA-ARS Water Management and Systems Research Unit (Fort Collins, CO), the University of Colorado-Boulder, and USDA-ARS Sunflower and Plant Biology Research Unit (Fargo, ND) and the sponsoring scientists are Drs. Sean M. Gleason, Nolan C. Kane, and Brent S. Hulke, respectively.Sunflower is one of the most widely produced oil crops across the globe. In the United States, many of the top sunflower-producing states experience episodic late-spring freezing temperatures. These freeze-thaw events pose a considerable threat to agricultural productivity through their dramatic impact on the water-transporting system of plants. This project aims to address this issue through identifying traits and genetics that confer superior performance under cold conditions in the common sunflower. Since this integrative project will occur at two USDA-ARS institutions with complementary missions as well as a public university, the results of this work should benefit ongoing efforts across multiple applied and fundamental disciplines. Furthermore, this experimental model could be adapted for other crops that are grown in locations with regularly occurring freeze-thaw events during the desired growing season. Training objectives for this project include characterizing hydraulic traits, identifying genetics underlying relevant traits, and developing high-throughput methods for efficient identification of superior crop lines. Broader impact activities during this project will include training and mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students as well as educational outreach at K-12 public schools and universities across northern Colorado.To meet agricultural demand in the face of climate change, plant functional traits and underlying genetics that allow superior plant performance under suboptimal environmental conditions must be identified. This project will contribute to this goal by characterizing the genetic architecture of hydraulic functioning in relation to high photosynthetic and whole-plant productivity under cold temperatures in sunflower. Relevant anatomical and functional traits will be characterized in plants grown under contrasting temperatures in climate-controlled growth chambers as well as plants grown in large-scale field trials. These results will be used to identify adaptive loci through both targeted and genome-wide association-mapping techniques. This project will feature over 300 accessions of the common sunflower, including the Sunflower Association Mapping (SAM) population, which encompasses 90% of the allelic diversity of cultivated sunflowers, as well as wild accessions that originate from a diversity of climates across its native range. Phenotypic and genotypic data from the wild accessions will be compared with climatic data from their respective sites of origin to provide ecological and evolutionary relevance, which could guide future breeding efforts for locations with exceptionally challenging climates. Phenotypic data from these investigations will be made available through the Sunflower Genome Database (https://www.sunflowergenome.org}, and genotypic data will be made available through the NCBI Short Read Archive database (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra).Keywords: sunflower, hydraulic trait, abiotic stress, ecophysiology, association mapping, genomics, high throughput field-based phenotypingThis award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.