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Evolutionary Plant Breeding as a Response to the Complexity of Climate Change - PubMed

  • ️Wed Jan 01 2020

Review

Evolutionary Plant Breeding as a Response to the Complexity of Climate Change

Salvatore Ceccarelli et al. iScience. 2020.

Abstract

Climate change is one of the processes that have already overstepped the safe planetary boundaries, together with the rate of biodiversity loss and human interference with the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles. The three processes are related to agriculture and, as such, to both food safety and food security, and ultimately to human health. Adaptation to climate change is a difficult breeding objective because of its complexity, its unpredictability, and its location specificity. However, one strategy exists, which is based on a more dynamic use of agrobiodiversity in agriculture through the cultivation of evolutionary populations. In this review, we show how the translation into agricultural practice of nearly 100 years of research on evolutionary populations and mixtures is able to address the complexity of climate change while stabilizing yield, decreasing the use of most agrochemicals, thus reducing emissions and producing healthy food.

Keywords: Biological Sciences; Evolutionary Biology; Plant Biology; Plant Biotechnology; Plant Genetics.

© 2020 The Author(s).

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Graphical abstract
Figure 1
Figure 1

An Evolutionary Population Is Distributed to Different Farmers (Six Farmers Are Shown as an Example) Representing Different Target Environments Each farmer can, independently, plant and harvest the evolutionary population using part of the seed harvested in the same farm. Each farmer can also use the evolutionary population to start a program of selection as shown in Figure 2. The same would apply to a dynamic mixture.

Figure 2
Figure 2

Steps, in a Single Farm, that Follow the Distribution of the Evolutionary Population Shown in Figure 1 The evolutionary population in each target environment is left evolving under natural selection pressure (path 1). It can also be subjected to different modes of artificial selection (path 2) leading to either improved sub-populations (steps 4–7 or 3-6-9) or uniform varieties (steps 3-5-8).

Figure 3
Figure 3

Current Diffusion, Throughout Italy, of the ICARDA Bread Wheat EP Made in Syria and Planted in Sicily and Tuscany, for the First Time in 2010

Figure 4
Figure 4

Divergent Evolution of a Bread Wheat Evolutionary Population after Ten Years of Cultivation in Two Contrasting Locations The ICARDA evolutionary bread wheat population after 10 years evolution in Sicily (left) and the same population after 10 years evolution in Tuscany (right) grown side by side in March 2020 (courtesy of Pierluigi Valenti).

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