Enhancing plant resilience via stress-priming - a solution for sustainable agricultural development

植物具有高度的适应性，能够根据环境调整自身的发育和生理。有趣的是，暴露在一种压力下似乎能够增强一般的适应力。例如，通过按压或抚摸进行的温和物理刺激可以增强结构强度（更短更硬的芽），以及对各种类型的生物和非生物压力源的耐受性。事实上，日本的农民已经将这种自然的植物反应作为作物预处理方法，其效果足以使小麦和大麦的产量提高20-50%。这种thigmo（希腊语为touch）启动战略易于获得、立即适用，并且与小农农业兼容，因此具有促进发展中国家可持续粮食安全的巨大潜力。我们正在与一个由社会科学和自然科学多个领域的合作者组成的跨学科团队一起，根据环境、社会和文化需求和情况，为两个特定的发展中国家的谷物作物制定实用的基因启动方案。同时，关于thigmo-priming的定量和机制研究很少，因此我们无法根据科学数据修改方案。该博士项目旨在揭示各种thigmo启动协议的投入产出关系，以建立其生物学基础，并根据当地农民社区的具体要求进行定制。通过这个项目，学生将学习植物发育的分子和系统研究，以及通过与社会、计算机和工程科学家的合作，学习国际农业发展的综合和多视角方法。它很可能涉及到在英国和发展中国家的实地考察。

Plants are highly adaptive and adjust their development and physiology according to the environment. Intriguingly, exposure to one type of stress seems to be able to enhance general resilience. For example, gentle physical stimulation via pressing or stroking result in boosting of structural strength (shorter and stiffer shoots), as well as tolerance against various types of biotic and abiotic stressors [1]. In fact, farmers in Japan have used such natural plant responses as a crop pre-conditioning method, which is effective enough to increase the yields of wheat and barley by 20-50% [2]. Such thigmo (touch in Greek)-priming strategy is accessible, immediately applicable, and compatible with smallholder farming, and thus has a great potential to catalyse sustainable food security in developing countries.Together with an interdisciplinary team of collaborators from social science and multiple fields of natural sciences, we are developing practical thigmo-priming protocols for cereal crops in two specific developing countries based on the environmental, social, and cultural needs and circumstances. Meanwhile, there are very little quantitative and mechanistic studies on thigmo-priming, and thus we are not able to modify protocols based on scientific data. This PhD project is to reveal input-output relationships of a variation of thigmo-priming protocols, in order to establish their biological underpinnings and to customise them for specific requirements of local farmer communities.With this project the student will be trained in molecular and systems study of plant development, as well as integrative and multi-perspective approaches for international agricultural development via collaborations with social, computer, and engineering scientists. It is likely to involve fieldworks in the UK and developing countries.