53-3 What Can We Learn from Evolutionary Biology and Natural Ecosystems to Improve Stress Responses?.
See more from this Division: C03 Crop Ecology, Management and Quality
See more from this Session: Symposium--Crop Perception to Environmental Stress
Abstract:
Fortunately, some tradeoffs that constrain natural selection need not constrain plant breeders. Natural selection favors plants that out-compete their neighbors for resources, but we have bred crops that essentially cooperate to use those resources more efficiently. Natural selection gives adaptation to past conditions, but we can breed crops for future CO2 concentrations and for resistance to pests and pathogens that have not yet reached our region or, perhaps, have not yet evolved. Natural selection is almost blind to future benefits, but we could breed crops that benefit subsequent crops in the same soil, via more-persistent root channels or by enriching the soil with more-beneficial microbes.
We may learn much by studying the stress-related adaptations of wild plants and landraces, especially in the ecosystems where they evolved. But we need to study the costs and risks of those adaptations, not just their benefits. Only then can we predict which of the genes and strategies that benefited those plants in their environments will be most beneficial in a given agricultural context.
See more from this Division: C03 Crop Ecology, Management and Quality
See more from this Session: Symposium--Crop Perception to Environmental Stress