Understanding Photosynthetic Acclimation to Temperature

不断增长的人口正在增加对食物的需求，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产量的努力，威胁着粮食安全。在英国的气候中，预计我们将经历更温暖、更潮湿的冬季和更炎热、更干燥的夏季，洪水、干旱和炎热的时期预计会增加。该项目将在监管者实验室以前工作的基础上，探索植物对温度胁迫的反应。我们之前已经证明，模式植物拟南芥能够适应温度变化的光合作用能力，这种适应对于优化种子生产是必不可少的。该项目将把这些测量扩展到农学上重要的作物物种，包括甘蓝型油菜和油菜，并询问同样的过程在多大程度上是重要的。这项工作将涉及植物生理学的最新技术(气体交换、光谱分析)和分子生物学和生化方法，以了解温度适应的分子基础。这项工作将对理解作物生产力的限制做出关键贡献，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.