Genome-wide association mapping and landscape scale modelling of heritable ionomic diversity in Arabidopsis thaliana populations

拟议中的研究利用遗传方法来确定控制植物吸收钾和磷等肥料中矿物质营养的方式的基因，以及潜在的有毒物质，如钠（对植物而言）、砷和镉（对食用植物的人类而言）。通过了解我们发现的不同形式的基因如何被植物利用，使它们能够在含有不同水平的矿物质营养物质或潜在有毒元素的土壤中生长，我们可以了解这些基因在使植物适应自然栖息地中暴露的各种土壤条件方面所起的作用。更好地了解植物自然种群的这些适应性，将为农业带来重大的实际利益，因为它为开发新的作物品种提供了所需的信息，这些作物品种能够更好地提供更高的产量，以满足未来对更多谷物用于生物燃料的需求，更多谷物用于肉类，以及到2050年预计增加的20亿人口所需的更多粮食。为了应对这些即将到来的挑战，需要增加作物产量，这将需要大幅增加灌溉农业生产，这将带来土壤盐分增加（钠含量升高）和相关的产量损失。因此，适应在盐度增加的情况下保持产量的作物将是必不可少的。农作物更有效地利用矿质营养肥料也将提高农民的产量，提高贫瘠土壤上作物的生产力，并限制生产和过度使用肥料造成的环境和生态破坏。对世界上大多数人口来说，植物也是钙、钾、锰、铁和锌等基本膳食矿物质营养素的主要来源，因此，努力提高大米、玉米和木薯等主食的矿物质营养素含量将对人类健康产生重大影响。植物也是各种有毒矿物质（如砷和镉）进入食物链的主要入口。更好地了解自然植物种群是如何经过数千年的进化，在矿物质营养贫乏的土壤或高盐度、高镉或高砷的土壤中生长的，将有助于指导我们如何为未来开发作物品种，既能实现产量和质量的必要提高，又能确保这些收获不受气候变化的影响，从而确保所有人的粮食安全。

The proposed research utilizes genetic approaches to identify the genes that control the way plants take up mineral nutrient found in fertilizers such as potassium and phosphorus and potential toxic substances such as sodium (for the plant), and arsenic and cadmium (for humans that eat the plants). By understanding how different forms of the genes we discover are used by plants to allow them to grow in soils containing different levels of mineral nutrients or potentially toxic elements we can understand the role these genes play in allowing plants to adapt to the varied soil conditions they are exposed to in their natural habitats. A better understanding of these adaptations in natural populations of plants would have significant practical benefits for agriculture by providing the information needed for the development of new varieties of crops better able to provide the increased yields needed to meet the future demand for more cereals for biofuels, more grain for meat, and more food for the additional 2 billion people expected by 2050. The increased crop yields needed to meet these coming challenges will require a significant increase in irrigated agricultural production which will bring with it increased salinity (elevated sodium) in soils and associated yield losses. Crops adapted to maintain yields in the face of increasing salinity will therefore be essential. More efficient use of mineral nutrient fertilizers by crops would also improve yields for farmers, enhance productivity of crops on poor soils, and limit the environmental and ecological damage the production and excess use of fertilizers causes. For most of the world's population, plants are also the major source of essential dietary mineral nutrients such as calcium, potassium, manganese, iron and zinc, and therefore efforts to improve the mineral nutrient content of staple foods such as rice, maize and cassava would have significant human health impacts. Plants are also the primary entry point for a variety of toxic minerals into the food chain such as arsenic and cadmium. A better understanding of how natural plant populations have evolved over thousands of years to grow in mineral nutrient poor soils or soils with elevated salinity, cadmium or arsenic would help guide how we develop crop varieties for the future that could deliver the needed increases in yield and quality while insuring these gains against a changing climate to ensure food security for all.