Breeders are encouraged to develop breeding approaches that strive to integrate food production into the healthy functioning of agro-ecosystems. In the case of legumes, this approach should preserve bee fauna by providing suitable floral resources within the crops themselves. In parallel, legume breeding for sustainable agriculture is linked to the development of environmental services. Foraging places and nesting sites for solitary and social bees are some of the ecological services provided for legumes. Crops with floral attractiveness and rewards for insects can be used to enhance pollinator conservation as well as crop yield and yield stability. We analyze how understanding crop-pollinator relationships (CPR) can contribute to the production of high-yielding and pollinator-friendly varieties by examining: (1) The status of knowledge on mating systems and floral traits; (2) The contribution of CPR understanding to plant breeding for both hybridseed production and open-pollinated population improvement.

Brown stem rot (BSR) of soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.], caused by Phialophora gregata (Allington & D.W. Chamb.) W. Gams 1971, is an economically important disease prevalent in soybean producing regions of the north‐central United States and Canada. To date, all BSR resistant genes identified are located on chromosome 16 (formerly molecular linkage group J). The objective of this study was to determine if four plant introductions from south‐central China identified as BSR resistant have resistance genes mapping to the same location on chromosome 16 as previously mapped BSR resistance genes. The four plant introductions, PI 594637, PI 594638B, PI 594650A, and PI 594858B, were crossed to the BSR‐susceptible cultivar ‘Century 84’ to develop four F2 populations. Each segregating population and the parental lines were screened for BSR resistance in growth chamber conditions. The F2:3 individual plants of each population were tested with the simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers Satt431 or Satt547, which map closely to BSR resistance quantitative trait loci (QTL) on chromosome 16. Associations between molecular data and phenotypic data used to validate QTL were analyzed using single factor ANOVA. Three of the four populations had markers on chromosome 16 significantly associated with BSR resistance with R2 values from 24 to 48%. However, when marker Satt547 was regressed on BSR resistance in population PI 594637 × Century 84, no significant association was observed. This result suggests that PI 594637 could have a new BSR resistance gene. Transgressive segregation also was observed in this population, and highly BSR resistant progeny could be used in the development of BSR resistant cultivars. Additional research and testing in this population will be conducted to identify resistance QTL(s) from this source.

In soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.], manual cross-pollination to produce large quantities of hybrid seed is difficult and time consuming. Identification of an environmentally stable male-sterility system could make hybrid seed production commercially valuable. In soybean, 2 environmentally sensitive male-sterile, female-fertile mutants (ms8 and msp) have been identified. Inheritance studies showed that sterility in both mutants is inherited as a single gene. The objectives of this study were to 1) confirm that msp and ms8 are independent genes; 2) identify the soybean chromosomes that contain the msp and the ms8 genes using bulked segregant analyses (BSAs); and 3) make a genetic linkage map of the regions containing these genes. Mapping populations consisting of 176 F(2) plants for ms8 and 134 F(2) plants for msp were generated. BSA revealed that Sat_389 and Satt172 are closely associated markers with ms8 and msp, respectively. Map location of Sat_389 suggested that the ms8 gene is located on chromosome 7; molecular linkage group (MLG) M. Map location of Satt172 indicated that the msp gene is located on chromosome 2 (MLG Dlb). Genetic linkage maps developed using F(2) populations revealed that ms8 is flanked by a telomere and Sat_389 and msp is flanked by Sat_069 and GMES4176. The region between the telomere and Sat_389 is physically 160 Kb. Soybean sequence information revealed that there are 13 genes present in that region. Protein BLASTP analyses revealed that homologs of 3 of the 13 genes are known to a play role in cell division, suggesting putative candidates for ms8.