Discovering How Root Sense Hard Soils

探索根系如何感知硬土

• 批准号: EP/Y036697/1
• 负责人: Bipin Pandey
• 金额: $ 161.88万
• 依托单位: University of Nottingham
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FY036697%2F1
• 关键词: Discovering; How; Root; Sense; Hard

Soil compaction represents a major challenge facing modern agriculture. When combined with other stresses like drought, soil compaction can reduce crop yields by up to 75% and causes billions of Euros in losses annually. The GROUNDBREAKING project addresses how plant roots sense different levels of soil compaction and modify their growth. This Project builds on my recent discovery that root responses to a high level of soil compaction are controlled by the gaseous signal "ethylene" (Pandey et al., 2021, Science,Huang et al., 2022, PNAS). However, agriculture soils vary greatly in terms of their hardness. Europe, inaddition to 36-million hectares of highly compacted soil, contains 25-million-hectares of soil prone to medium compaction. Therefore, discovering which signalling pathways control root sensing of low to medium and high to very high levels of soil compaction is vital for developing more climate resilient crops. I hypothesise that roots employ novel volatile signals to sense medium levels of soil compaction, and mechanical signalling pathways to sense very high level of soil compaction. The premise of this novel signalling paradigm is based on the size of volatile signalling molecules and soil pores that impact the ability of gaseous signals to diffuse through compacted soil. However, when soil pore size is too small to allowgaseous exchange for even small signals like ethylene, mechanical signalling will take over to control root responses in very highly compacted soil. The GROUNDBREAKING project will pioneer the characterisation of novel volatile and mechanical signalling pathways I have recently identified control root compaction responses, revealing their underlying molecular, cellular and tissue-scale mechanisms, then creating a new paradigm for root-soil signalling. To realise these ambitious goals, I will integrate interdisciplinary expertise in soil physics, state-of-the-art non-invasive imaging, cutting edge molecular biology and genetic approaches under natural soil conditions. The GROUNDBREAKING project is also very timely as the new knowledge generated about compactionresponses will underpin efforts to engineer crop roots to grow deeper and access more reliable water resources.

土壤压实是现代农业面临的一大挑战。当与干旱等其他压力相结合时，土壤压实可能会使作物减产高达75%，每年造成数十亿欧元的损失。这个开创性的项目解决了植物根系如何感知不同程度的土壤压实并调节它们的生长。这个项目建立在我最近的发现之上，即根系对高水平土壤压实的反应受气体信号“乙烯”的控制(Pandey等人，2021，Science，Huang等人，2022，PNAS)。然而，农业土壤的硬度差别很大。欧洲除了3600万公顷高度压实的土壤外，还有2500万公顷的中等压实土壤。因此，发现哪些信号通路控制着土壤压实程度从低到中以及从高到极高的根系感觉，对于发展更具气候适应性的作物至关重要。我假设，根使用新的挥发性信号来感知中等水平的土壤压实，并使用机械信号途径来感知非常高水平的土壤压实。这一新的信号模式的前提是基于挥发性信号分子和土壤孔隙的大小，这些分子和土壤孔隙影响气体信号在压实土壤中扩散的能力。然而，当土壤孔隙太小，甚至不允许像乙烯这样的小信号进行气体交换时，机械信号将在高度压实的土壤中接管控制根系反应的工作。这个开创性的项目将开创我最近确定的控制根紧凑反应的新的挥发性和机械信号通路的特征，揭示其潜在的分子、细胞和组织尺度的机制，然后创建根-土壤信号的新范式。为了实现这些雄心勃勃的目标，我将整合土壤物理、最先进的非侵入性成像、尖端分子生物学和自然土壤条件下的遗传方法方面的跨学科专业知识。这一开创性项目也非常及时，因为产生的关于压实反应的新知识将为设计作物根部以使其生长更深并获得更可靠的水资源的努力奠定基础。