Wild and weedy relatives of domesticated crops harbor genetic variants that can advance agricultural biotechnology. Here we provide a genome resource for the wild plant green millet (
Modern agriculture depends on a narrow variety of crop species, leaving global food and nutritional security highly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change and population expansion. Crop improvement using conventional and molecular breeding approaches leveraging plant genetic diversity using crop wild relatives (CWRs) has been one approach to address these issues. However, the rapid pace of the global change requires additional innovative solutions to adapt agriculture to meet global needs. Neodomestication—the rapid and targeted introduction of domestication traits using introgression or genome editing of CWRs—is being explored as a supplementary approach. These methods show promise; however, they have so far been limited in efficiency and applicability. We propose expanding the scope of neodomestication beyond truly wild CWRs to include feral crops as a source of genetic diversity for novel crop development, in this case ‘redomestication’. Feral crops are plants that have escaped cultivation and evolved independently, typically adapting to their local environments. Thus, feral crops potentially contain valuable adaptive features while retaining some domestication traits. Due to their genetic proximity to crop species, feral crops may be easier targets for de novo domestication (i.e. neodomestication via genome editing techniques). In this review, we explore the potential of de novo redomestication as an application for novel crop development by genome editing of feral crops. This approach to efficiently exploit plant genetic diversity would access an underutilized reservoir of genetic diversity that could prove important in support of global food insecurity in the face of the climate change.
more » « less- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10368552
- Publisher / Repository:
- Oxford University Press
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Plant and Cell Physiology
- ISSN:
- 0032-0781
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract Setaria viridis ), a model species for studies of C4grasses, and use the resource to probe domestication genes in the close crop relative foxtail millet (Setaria italica ). We produced a platinum-quality genome assembly ofS. viridis and de novo assemblies for 598 wild accessions and exploited these assemblies to identify loci underlying three traits: response to climate, a ‘loss of shattering’ trait that permits mechanical harvest and leaf angle, a predictor of yield in many grass crops. With CRISPR–Cas9 genome editing, we validatedLess Shattering1 (SvLes1 ) as a gene whose product controls seed shattering. InS. italica , this gene was rendered nonfunctional by a retrotransposon insertion in the domesticated loss-of-shattering alleleSiLes1-TE (transposable element). This resource will enhance the utility ofS. viridis for dissection of complex traits and biotechnological improvement of panicoid crops. -
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Societal Impact Statement Given the rapidly increasing drought and temperature stresses associated with climate change, innovative approaches for food security are imperative. One understudied opportunity is using feral crops—plants that have escaped and persisted without cultivation—as a source of genetic diversity, which could build resilience in domesticated conspecifics. In some cases, however, feral plants vigorously compete with crops as weeds, challenging food security. By bridging historically siloed ecological, agronomic, and evolutionary lines of inquiry into feral crops, there is the opportunity to improve food security and understand this relatively understudied anthropogenic phenomenon.
Summary The phenomenon of feral crops, that is, free‐living populations that have established outside cultivation, is understudied. Some researchers focus on the negative consequences of domestication, whereas others assert that feral populations may serve as useful pools of genetic diversity for future crop improvement. Although research on feral crops and the process of feralization has advanced rapidly in the last two decades, generalizable insights have been limited by a lack of comparative research across crop species and other factors. To improve international coordination of research on this topic, we summarize the current state of feralization research and chart a course for future study by consolidating outstanding questions in the field. These questions, which emerged from the colloquium “Darwins' reversals: What we now know about Feralization and Crop Wild Relatives” at the BOTANY 2021 conference, fall into seven categories that span both basic and applied research: (1) definitions and drivers of ferality, (2) genetic architecture and pathway, (3) evolutionary history and biogeography, (4) agronomy and breeding, (5) fundamental and applied ecology, (6) collecting and conservation, and (7) taxonomy and best practices. These questions serve as a basis for ferality researchers to coordinate research in these areas, potentially resulting in major contributions to food security in the face of climate change.
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