Salinity Tolerance: From Model or Wild Plants to Adapted Crops

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Background

Approximately 20% of irrigated land has salt-affected soil, equivalent to the area used to produce one-third of the worlds’ food. Salinization and sodification are major soil degrading processes that reduce agricultural productivity, which along with the rapid depletion of groundwater reserves, is a major challenge to global food security. Given that genetic variation is the basis for crop improvement, there are many avenues for researchers to exploit, from identifying traits related to salt tolerance to genetic control of traits using locally adapted plants (the wild relatives of domesticated plant species and landraces), genetic populations and mutant variants. There is also great potential to compare and translate findings of genetic regulation of salt stress responses from model plant species to crops through genome editing and gene modifying techniques.

Salt tolerance is a genetically complex and can be dissected into the contributing traits and mechanisms. This can include traits such as yield and fruit or grain quality and the break-down into component traits, such as transpiration, photosynthesis, nutrient uptake, senescence, ROS scavenging, ion compartmentation and ion transport, amongst others. Plants can respond to salt stress in various ways, the differences can be analysed in comparative physiological and genetic studies. Salinity can also reduce the osmotic and water potential of the growth medium, inhibiting water uptake. Here, we are interested in examining novel findings that will assist us in understanding genetic determinants of salt stress responses and adaptation using a variety of physiological, genomic and genetic techniques.



This Research Topic aims to identify novel research findings on salinity tolerance in plants, especially crops. The scope of this topic includes:

1. Understanding physiological and molecular mechanisms behind plant sensing, signaling and responses to salt stress
2. Conferring salinity tolerance to plants, especially crops through the introduction of genes and regulators of responses and/or adaptation to salt stress
a. using genetic modification and gene editing techniques
b. comparative genomic and phylogenetic studies
3. Identifying salinity tolerance traits in wild progenitors and landraces and/or translating this into crops
a. Controlled environment and field genetic studies to identify component traits
b. Genomic comparative and phylogenetic studies
4. Identifying and dissecting traits related to water use under salt stress from whole plant physiology to cellular pathways
a. Genetic control of transpiration and water use efficiency under salt stress
b. Radial transport pathways of water and ion movement
i. The role of aquaporins in water and sodium transport
ii. chemical modifications that regulate ion flux under salt stress including endodermal suberization
5. Soil microbe root interaction under salinity stress
a. Can microbes help to impart salinity stress tolerance in plants?
b. How are beneficial interactions between soil microbes and roots negatively impacted by salinity stress?

Keywords: Salt stress, Signaling, Response, Water use, Transpiration, Aquaporins, Suberization, Soil microbe

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