Lessons on water use from natural populations for improving crop sustainability

The availability of water is the most fundamental limitation to net primary productivity. This is reflected by the plethora of adaptive mechanisms that plants have evolved to conserve water and balance water use with carbon fixation via photosynthesis. In this seminar, John Ferguson will highlight two case studies from my work that provide evidence to demonstrate how physiological variation in water use characteristics are critical for defining adaption in natural populations.

Firstly, John will show, at the level of the gene, how water use in Arabidopsis thaliana is a target of selection to confer persistence in warm environments. Secondly, he will highlight how physical constraints on leaf-level gas exchange are important for allowing wild-relatives of modern-day barley to survive in desert-like environments in the fertile crescent.

Through the key findings of these cases studies, John hopes to persuade you that the microscopic pores (stomata) that exists on the surface of the leaf are critical to defining adaptation and are thus valuable targets for crop improvement. Finally, he will demonstrate the capacity to translate this knowledge in to efforts to improve the water use efficiency of sorghum as an emerging bioenergy crop.