Collaborative Research: URoL:ASC: Microbiome-mediated plant genetic resistance for enhanced agricultural sustainability

农业植物生产为人类提供了一些最基本的需求，包括食物、纤维和住所。然而，传统农业做法对生态系统造成破坏，并削弱其能力。与气候变化相关的更大的病原体压力和干旱胁迫减少了作物产量，从而增加了这一挑战。已经有人提出培育植物，从环境中招募有益的微生物来提高抗病和抗逆性，但研究界缺乏协调一致的努力来开发和批判性地评估这种方法。该UROL项目将开发和研究作物品种，通过聚集微生物群落来增强对当前和紧急生物和非生物主要压力的抵抗力，从而提高农业的可持续性。这项研究将在三种广泛种植的作物上进行：小麦、番茄和杨树。新的知识和遗传物质将被广泛分享，以使世界各地的育种计划和生产者能够迅速采用。在小麦的重点研究方面，与俄勒冈州部落和非部落的小麦种植者合作，将促进共同生产知识，并在农村小麦种植社区建设能力。该教育计划将为本科生和研究生以及博士后学者提供就业和培训。与传统大学和蓝山社区学院的合作将有助于从STEM传统上代表性较低的群体中招收学生参加我们的本科暑期项目。与俄勒冈州科学与工业博物馆协调的一项外展计划试图通过在博物馆、图书馆和县集市上的实践活动来提高公众对农业中植物微生物群的理解。一个新兴的生活规则是，植物基因变异塑造了其微生物群的组装。微生物群反过来影响植物的关键功能。这个UROL项目试图通过培育植物来招募具有抗病和抗旱能力的微生物群落，从而理解这些规则并将其应用于农业。第一个目标是确定微生物群介导的对主要当前和紧急生物和非生物胁迫的遗传抗性的遗传靶标。通过测试不同的物种-一年生草本植物(小麦)、一年生双子叶植物(番茄)和多年生双子叶植物(杨树)-该项目将调查控制病原微生物、有益微生物和寄主基因之间关系的规则。最重要的假设是，寄主基因型选择不同作物中的疾病抑制微生物，尽管具体的分子、生理和生态机制可能在不同的系统中不同。第二个目标将测试影响特定病原体的遗传目标是否与对其他病原体和干旱胁迫的抗性有关。总之，这项工作将导致小麦、番茄和杨树品种的发展，这些品种表达了微生物群介导的对重要生物和生物胁迫的遗传抗性。总体而言，UROL项目的贡献将是广泛的，涵盖植物育种和遗传学、基因组学、植物病理学、微生物学、微生物群落生态学和跨学科科学。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Agricultural plant production provides humans with some of our most basic needs including food, fiber and shelter. Yet conventional agricultural practices cause damage to ecosystems and undermine their capacity. Greater pathogen pressure and drought stress associated with climate change add to this challenge by reducing crop yields. Breeding plants to recruit beneficial microbes from the environment conferring disease resistance and stress tolerance has been proposed, but the research community has lacked a coordinated effort to develop and critically evaluate this approach. This URoL project will develop and study crop varieties that enhance agricultural sustainability by assembling microbial communities that enhance resistance to major current and emergent biotic and abiotic stresses. The research will be conducted in three widely grown crops: wheat, tomato, and poplar. New knowledge and genetic material will be widely shared to enable rapid adoption by breeding programs and producers around the world. In focal studies of wheat, collaboration with tribal and non-tribal wheat farmers in Oregon will foster the co-production of knowledge and build capacity in rural wheat farming communities. The education program will provide employment and training to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as postdoctoral scholars. Partnerships with Heritage University and Blue Mountain Community College will help to recruit students from traditionally underrepresented groups in STEM to our undergraduate summer program. An outreach program coordinated with the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry seeks to improve the public understanding of plant microbiomes in agriculture through hands-on activities in museums, libraries, and county fairs.An emerging rule of life is that plant genetic variation shapes the assembly of its microbiome. The microbiome in turn affects critical plant functions. This URoL project seeks to understand and apply these rules to agriculture by breeding plants to recruit microbial communities conferring disease resistance and drought tolerance. The first aim is to identify genetic targets underlying microbiome-mediated genetic resistance to major current and emergent biotic and abiotic stresses. By testing diverse species – an annual grass (wheat), annual dicot (tomato), and a perennial dicot (poplar trees) – the project will investigate the rules governing the relationships among pathogenic microbes, beneficial microbes, and host genotypes. The overarching hypothesis is that host genotypes select for disease-suppressive microbes across crops, though specific molecular, physiological, and ecological mechanisms may differ among systems. The second aim will test whether genetic targets impacting particular pathogens are associated with resistance to additional pathogens and to drought stress. Together, this work will lead to the development of wheat, tomato, and poplar cultivars expressing microbiome-mediated genetic resistance to important biotic and biotic stresses. Overall, the contributions of this URoL project will be wide-ranging, spanning plant breeding and genetics, genomics, plant pathology, microbiology, microbial community ecology, and transdisciplinary sciences.This 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.