Evolution of halophytes: a phyloinformatic approach to understanding and exploiting the traits underlying salt-tolerance in plants

盐碱化是澳大利亚经济和环境日益沉重的负担，澳大利亚有200万公顷受盐碱影响的土地，每年给农业造成的损失超过1.87亿美元。一种解决方案是开发天然耐盐植物，以增加生产性农田，恢复受盐分影响的环境。要做到这一点，我们必须增加对耐盐性多样性和分布的基本知识。该项目首次利用来自数千个物种的DNA序列来了解耐盐性的进化，以便为开发新的作物品种、选择可开发用于生物修复的物种以及识别将成为育种计划有益目标的性状提供基础。

Salinity is an increasing burden on the Australian economy & environment, with >2 million ha of salt-affected land, at an annual cost to agriculture over $187 million. One solution is to exploit naturally salt-tolerant plants to increase productive agricultural land and restore salt-affected environments. To do this, we must increase basic knowledge of the diversity & distribution of salt-tolerance. This project is the first to use DNA sequences from thousands of species to understand the evolution of salt-tolerance in order to provide the foundation for the development of new crop varieties, selection of species that can be developed for bioremediation, and identification of traits that will be profitable targets for breeding programs.