The Maize ATLAS Project: Implementation of An Experimental Framework for Studying Adaptation.

Plant responses to environmental variables such as day length and temperature impose adaptation barriers that limit the use of valuable genetic variation within crop species to regional adaptive zones.  Maize is a highly genetically diverse crop, and understanding the genetic basis of environmental adaptation and response to selection will aid in mining superior alleles from ‘exotic’ germplasm resources to address production challenges associated with climate change.  The Maize ATLAS (Adaptation Through Latitudinal Artificial Selection; http://www.maizeatlas.org/) project aims to: 1) phenotypically, genetically, and ecologically characterize genomic loci limiting the adaptation of tropical maize to temperate environments to enhance breeding speed and progress; 2) increase knowledge about the genetic basis of response to artificial selection that is fundamental to plant breeding.  We are developing new germplasm and genomic resources, methods for crop improvement, and statistical approaches for dissecting the genetic architecture underlying environmental adaptation and response to selection.  Here, we provide an overview and most recent results of the project.