Global crop production is being challenged by rapid population growth, declining natural resources, and dramatic climatic turnovers. These challenges have prompted plant breeders to explore new ventures to enhance adaptation and sustainability in crops. One intriguing approach to make agriculture more sustainable is by turning annual systems into perennial which offers many economic and biodiversity-friendly benefits. Previous attempts to develop a perennial cereal crop employed a classical breeding approach and extended over a long period with limited success. Thus, elucidating the genetic basis of perenniality at the molecular level can accelerate the breeding process.Here, we investigated the genetic basis of bulb formation in the barley congener species Hordeum bulbosum by elucidating the transcripts presence/absence variation compared with other annual species in the Poaceae, and a differential expression analysis of meristem tissues. The PAV analysis recaptured the expected phylogeny and indicated that H. bulbosum is enriched with developmental and disease responsive genes that are absent among annual species. Next, the abundance of transcripts was quantified and allowed to identify differentially expressed genes that are associated with bulb formation pathways in addition to major circadian clock genes that regulate flowering. A first model for the bulb formation pathway is suggested and include developmental and starch biosynthesis genes. To the best of our knowledge this is the first transcriptome developed for H. bulbosum and the first attempt to describe the regulation of bulb initiation in cereals at the molecular level.
We observed the brown honeyeater, Lichmera indistincta, visiting blueberry orchards in eastern Australia. L. indistincta is considered to be a nectarivorous bird, feeding almost entirely on nectar. However, we report observations of this species as both a nectarivore and insectivore in blueberry crops and as an insectivore in raspberry crops. Brown honeyeaters may be acting as biological control agents when feeding on leaf‐roller caterpillars (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) in blueberry orchards and on brown blowflies (Calliphora stygia) in raspberry orchards. Although most blueberry growing regions use managed honey bees as the main pollinator, more studies on the complex tritrophic interactions occurring in these crops are needed to better understand the costs and benefits of different farm management practices upon alternative pollinators.
Rapid population growth and dramatic climatic turnovers are challenging global crop production. These challenges are spurring plant breeders to enhance adaptation and sustainability of major crops. One intriguing approach is to turn annual systems into perennial, yet long-term classical breeding efforts to induce perenniality have achieved limited success. Here, we report results of our investigation of the genetic basis of bulb formation in the non-model organism Hordeum bulbosum, a perennial species closely related to barley. To identify candidate genes that regulate bulb formation in H. bulbosum we applied two complementary approaches. First, we explored the evolutionary conservation of expressed genes among annual Poaceae species. Next, we assembled a reference transcriptome for H. bulbosum and conducted a differential expression analysis before and after stimulating bulb initiation. Low conservation was identified in genes related to perenniality in H. bulbosum compared with other species, including bulb development and sugar accumulation genes. We also inspected these genes using a differential expression analysis, which enabled identification of additional genes responsible for bulb initiation and flowering regulation. We propose a molecular model for the regulation of bulb formation involving storage organ development and starch biosynthesis genes. The high conservation observed along most of the pathway between H. bulbosum and barley suggests a potential for application of biotechnological techniques to accelerate breeding towards perenniality in barley.
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