Research on adaptation
Durable disease resistance
SCRI’s experience with long-standing issues such as root rots and viruses of soft fruit and late blight, viruses and nematodes on potato have been tackled with genetic solutions involving considerable investment in germplasm resources and genetic and molecular mechanism research leading to durable resistance solutions. By understanding the mechanisms involved we can use these resources to tackle the problems of new and emerging diseases.
Contact: Professor Paul Birch or Dr Lesley Torrance
Artificially-changed environments
The environment for the growing of high-value soft fruit crops is an excellent example of where SCRI has developed solutions to cope with the new pest and disease problems arising from cultural practices, such as the recent move to growing in polytunnels. Growing problems such as the spread of root rot in raspberry and abiotic stresses such as lack of winter chilling in blackcurrant are tackled with genetic solutions involving considerable investment in germplasm resources and the underlying genetics, enabling the selection of better-adapted cultivars for sustainable production.
Contact: Dr Rex Brennan
Biodiversity of model crops (barley and potato)
Climate change and biodiversity interact in many important ways. The biodiversity of two of Scotland’s main crops (barley and potato) has been documented using molecular markers. This approach has become the keystone for collaboration in barley, allowing the demonstration of geneflow, the origins of important traits, and forming the basis of international resources to breed for response to climatic and other changes. Similarly in potato, the Commonwealth Potato Collection provides a diverse source of germplasm that can be utilised to incorporate traits giving tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses.
Contacts: Dr Joanne Russell (barley) or Dr Gavin Ramsay (potato)
Figure 1: Rotatable, 3D representations of multivariate analysis of molecular data can help discriminate natural groupings, as in this data set from the Commonwealth Potato Collection displayed using a new programme CurlyWhirly.
Manipulating recombination to improve crop breeding
Maintaining food production under conditions of climate and environmental change will require the breeding of new crop varieties better adapted to these conditions. Meiotic recombination is one of the principal forces creating the genetic diversity that enables crop improvement, and is the fundamental instrument underlying most crop breeding programs. The University of Dundee and SCRI are involved in projects aimed at gaining greater understanding of how recombination is controlled in crop plants in order to enable the process to be manipulated to improve the speed and accuracy of plant breeding in response to climate change.
Contact: Professor Claire Halpin or Dr Luke Ramsay
Functional interactions of crop ecology
SCRI is developing an understanding of the resilience of cropping systems in response to environmental changes. A solid framework for understanding the functional interactions within cropping systems, essentially the biodiversity of the arable environment, has been developed. This framework is based on the functional role of organisms in the environment and includes a wide range of plants, herbivorous insects, detritivores, pollinators and natural enemies that together maintain a range of system process including decomposition, pollination and pest control. The key processes driving carbon and nitrogen cycling in these systems are being studied, and together these data will be used to better define the components of the system that are necessary for arable systems to remain sustainable in the face of environmental change.
Contact: Dr Cathy Hawes
Figure 2: Schematic illustration of the main functional components of the within field arable food web based on monocot (grasses) and dicot (broadleaf) arable plants. The thickness of a line indicates the strength of the relationships between each functional group.
Roots-soil interactions
Climate change predictions are for increased variability of rainfall in many regions worldwide, resulting in greater fluctuations in soil water regime. Crop root systems will be subjected to increased physical stresses – specifically the incidence of intermittent water stress, soil mechanical impedance, and hypoxia. We are studying the relative importance of these stresses so that we can better target particular crop cultivars to soil physical conditions. This work involves both measuring root physiological responses of particular genotypes, and the better characterisation of soil physical stresses.
Contact: Dr Glyn Bengough
Figure 3: root systems are complex branched structures that respond to variations in local soil conditions. This figure shows proliferation of first order lateral root branches of a barley root system grown in a thin layer of soil.
Biodiversity of pests and pathogens
The biodiversity of pests and pathogens is also of major importance, with internationally recognised culture collections, for example, Phytophthora and Erwinia, playing key roles in understanding population change, mechanisms of pathogenicity and the durability of resistance.
Contact: Dr David Cooke (Phytophthoras) or Dr Ian Toth (Pectobacteria)
Figure 4: Genetic diversity in the oak root pathogen Phytophthora quercina.
Human and animal pathogens in the environment
Understanding of the role of climate change on the survival and movement of human and animal pathogens in the environment, and particularly their association with plants and soils. The presence of many of the pathogens in the environment correlates with seasonal temperature and their spread is aided by rainfall. They can be detected in soils, water, plants, animals and even some insects. Our work aims to understand the role that plants play as alternative hosts for the bacteria and how changes in the climate affect the outcomes of the bacteria-plant interactions. (For more information see Holden et al. 2008. FEMS Microbiology Reviews)
Contact: Dr Nicola Holden
Resistance/resilience to abiotic stresses and variable environments
Although arable fields are managed habitats, arable plants are exposed to significant variation in factors such as water and nutrient availability and temperature. Climate change presents new challenges for maintaining plant productivity in these conditions, in terms of the type of abiotic stress imposed and the degree of environmental variation experienced by arable plants. At SCRI, we are investigating some of the mechanisms underlying the ability of certain plants types to withstand these environmental stresses. This will enable us to exploit natural and novel plant variation to develop resilient plant types that are productive under the environmental stresses imposed by climate change.
Contact: Dr Alison Karley
Figure 5: Barley varieties show different growth responses to high and low nitrogen supply.
New functional crops
Development of new crops (including energy crops and those producing molecules of high value) to take advantage of more favorable growing conditions.
Contact: Dr Derek Stewart
Complex interactions between plants and other organisms
Assessing the resilience of the ecosystems to climatic perturbations has largely focused on simple plant monocultures without including multiple organisms associated with the plant. However, the consequences of environmental change on one organism often have unexpected consequences for secondary and tertiary trophic interactions. In managed ecosystems (e.g. crop systems), understanding how the system as a whole responds to such events will be essential for maintaining productivity. Our most recent research has shown that while CO2 enrichment increases root nodulation (and N-fixation) in some legumes, this leads to a massive increase in numbers of clover root weevil larvae which occupy these nodules. Increased nodule herbivory changes the N-balance of the plant, which negatively affects weevils living aboveground.
Contact: Dr Scott Johnson
Figure 6: CO2 enrichment promotes root nodulation in legumes with divergent consequences for larval and adult (pictured) clover root weevils.
Virus vector populations
Differences in climatic conditions, such as increases in temperature, will have a direct impact on local insect vector populations. Reproduction, physical activity and metabolic rates would all be increased. These processes would act together to increase the efficiency of vectors and consequently virus spread. In future, the use of insecticides will become restricted and methods to control vectors will require constant innovation.
Contact: Dr Brian Fenton
Crop diversity, durable resistance and climate change
Crop systems need to be more resilient to cope with climate change. Incorporating diversity into our crops can be achieved without losing quality whilst increasing productivity and reducing pathogen spread. Heterogeneous crops also exhibit greater stability across environments. The best sources of pest and pathogen resistance can be further enhanced by deployment in such mixed crop stands. These advantages are being demonstrated for cereal crops for all quality markets.
Contact: Dr Adrian Newton
Figure 7: Yield increase in winter barley compared with the mean of the components increasing with component number in the mixture, with or without fungicide treatment.
