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ADAPTOM Linking Environmental Adaptation to Fruit Yield – water productivity in tomato. Projet ANR (2014-2017). Coordination M. Causse UR1052 Génétique et Amélioration des Fruits et Légumes.

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Autres partenaires du projet 

N. Bertin UR1115  Plantes et Systèmes de culture Horticoles INRA Avignon; C. Rothan UMR1332 Biologie du fruit et Pathologie INRA Bordeaux ; Vilmorin & Cie; Gautier Semences SAS.

Understanding mechanisms governing plant adaptation to the environment is a crucial challenge in the light of current issues concerning climate change. The diversity present in natural populations and genetic resources is a vital source of traits and alleles for crops, many of which may have been inadvertently lost during selection. The accumulation of knowledge on genes or traits, which enable the plant to adapt to a changing environment, is necessary for future plant breeding programs. The rise of functional genomic strategies combined with systems biology approaches are a powerful way of linking whole plant physiology, stress adaptation and crop breeding to information on gene transcription and regulation, metabolite variation and networks of interactions. In parallel, functional analysis of candidate genes and key regulators give complementary and precise information on specific pathways and responses. The objective of the project is the identification of useful alleles, genes, QTLs and phenotypes that will enable a plant to maintain yield under conditions of limited water. This trait is defined as water productivity: we therefore do not aim to study drought stress per se as a phenotype but instead something closer to the conditions plants may really have to withstand in the field in a changing environment.