Understanding Photosynthetic Acclimation to Temperature

不断增长的人口增加了对粮食的需求，但与此同时，气候也在变化，而且至关重要的是，气候变得更加多变。气候变化正在破坏提高作物生产力的努力，威胁粮食安全。在英国的气候中，预计我们将有更温暖、更潮湿的冬季和更炎热、更干燥的夏季，预计洪水、干旱和高温的时间将会增加。本项目将建立在导师实验室之前的工作基础上，探索植物对温度胁迫的反应。我们之前已经证明，模式芸苔物种拟南芥能够适应其光合能力以适应温度变化，并且这种适应对于优化种子生产至关重要。该项目将把这些测量扩展到重要的农艺作物物种，包括甘蓝型油菜和油菜，并询问相同的过程在多大程度上是重要的。工作将涉及植物生理学的最新技术（气体交换，光谱学）与分子生物学和生化方法，以了解温度驯化的分子基础。这项工作将对了解作物生产力的局限性作出重要贡献，并将有助于开辟作物育种的新途径，以应对世界粮食危机。

Growing human populations are increasing demand for food, but at the same time, climates are changing and, crucially, becoming more variable. Changes in climate are undermining efforts to increase crop productivity, threatening food security. In the UK climate, it is expected that we will have warmer wetter winters and hotter drier summers, with periods of flood, drought and heat expected to increase. This project will build on previous work in the supervisors' laboratory to explore the responses of plants to temperature stress. We have previously shown that the model brassica species Arabidopsis thaliana is able to acclimate its photosynthetic capacity to changes in temperature and that this acclimation is essential to optimising seed production. This project will extend these measurements into agronomically important crop species, including Brassica napus and Brassica rapa, and ask to what extent the same processes are important. Work will involve the latest techniques in plant physiology (gas exchange, optical spectropscopy) with molecular biological and biochemical approaches to understand the molecular basis of temperature acclimation. This work will make a key contribution to understanding the limitations on crop productivity and will help to open up new avenues in crop breeding to address the world food crisis.