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个重大挑战。当与干旱等其他压力相结合时，土壤压实可使作物产量减少高达75%，每年造成数十亿欧元的损失。Groundbreaking项目解决了植物根系如何感知不同水平的土壤压实并改变其生长。这个项目建立在我最近的发现基础上，即根系对高水平土壤压实的反应是由气体信号“乙烯”控制的（Pandey等人，2021，Science，Huang等人，2022，PNAS）。然而，农业土壤在硬度方面差异很大。欧洲除了3600万公顷高度压实的土壤外，还有2500万公顷的土壤易于中度压实。因此，发现哪些信号通路控制低到中等和高到非常高水平的土壤压实的根感对于开发更具气候适应性的作物至关重要。我假设，根采用新的挥发性信号来感知中等水平的土壤压实，和机械信号传导途径来感知非常高水平的土壤压实。这种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，影响气体信号通过压实土壤扩散的能力。然而，当土壤孔隙太小，甚至像乙烯气体交换小的信号，机械信号将接管控制在非常高度压实的土壤根的反应。GROUNDBREAKING项目将开创新的挥发性和机械信号通路的特征，我最近发现了控制根压实反应，揭示其潜在的分子，细胞和组织规模的机制，然后创建一个新的范例根土壤信号。为了实现这些雄心勃勃的目标，我将在自然土壤条件下整合土壤物理学，最先进的非侵入性成像，尖端分子生物学和遗传方法的跨学科专业知识。GROUNDBREAKING项目也非常及时，因为有关预防措施的新知识将支持工程作物根系生长更深和获得更可靠的水资源的努力。