Institut für Züchtungsforschung an landwirtschaftlichen Kulturen
Barley is characterized by high levels of intra-specific diversity and adaptation to environments both stress-prone and resource-rich, and to environments characterized by all levels of competition. These features, together with the available genomic resources, make it an attractive model for ecological genetic studies. As the leaf is the most important photosynthetic organ, total leaf area has a direct impact on crop stature, growth, and yield through photosynthesis and thus also plant fitness. The flag leaf, the final leaf to emerge before the panicle, is often regarded as the most important supply of assimilates to the panicle, and was associated with grain yield and, thus, plant fitness in wheat and rice. In a newly developed multiparental mapping population, we observed a high diversity for flag leaf length and width and detected several major quantitative trait loci (QTL) for these traits. This is a goodng point to isolate the underlying allelic variants and study their fitness effect and adaptive potential under various environmental conditions in field but also plant-growth-chamber experiments. With our work, we will contribute to the overarching objective of this CRC, namely, to establish links between genes and their roles under natural conditions (OAQ1). In this project, we propose to characterize the intra-specific leaf economics spectrum (LES) of barley under diverse environmental conditions and clarify its association with plant performance and fitness. With that we want to help answer the question to what extent do leaf-level resource economics in a species reflect whole-plant physiology, plant performance, and ultimately, fitness. Data from these experiments will enable us to compare the patterns of traits covarying with the LES with that observed in Hordeum (B7 Bucharova, Korff) as well as the Brassicaceae (A1 Weber). This comparison will improve our understanding of how species’ and families’ respond to environmental gradients, the second overarching question (OAQ2) of this CRC.
German Research Foundation
