TY - JOUR

T1 - Physiological and morphological responses of different spring barley genotypes to water deficit and associated QTLs

AU - Moualeu-Ngangué, Dany

AU - Dolch, Christoph

AU - Schneider, Michael

AU - Léon, Jens

AU - Uptmoor, Ralf

AU - Stützel, Hartmut

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2020 Moualeu-Ngangué et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

PY - 2020/8/27

Y1 - 2020/8/27

N2 - Water deficit is one of the major limitations to food production worldwide and most climate change scenarios predict an aggravation of the situation. To face the expected increase in drought stress in the coming years, breeders are working to elucidate the genetic control of barley growth and productivity traits under water deficit. Barley is known as a relatively drought tolerant crop and genetic variability was observed for drought tolerance traits. The objectives of the present study were the quantification of morphological and physiological responses in a collection of 209 spring barley genotypes to drought stress, and the genetic analysis by genome-wide association study to find quantitative trait loci (QTL) and the allele contributions for each of the investigated traits. In six pot experiments, 209 spring barley genotypes were grown under a well-watered and water-limited regime. Stress phases were initiated individually for each genotype at the beginning of tillering and spiking for the vegetative- and the generative stage experiments, respectively, and terminated when the transpiration rates of stress treatments reached 10% of the well-watered control. After the stress phase, a total of 42 productivity related traits such as the dry matter of plant organs, tiller number, leaf length, leaf area, amount of water soluble carbohydrates in the stems, proline content in leaves and osmotic adjustment of corresponding well-watered and stressed plants were analysed, and QTL analyses were performed to find marker-trait associations. Significant water deficit effects were observed for almost all traits and significant genotype x treatment interactions (GxT) were observed for 37 phenotypic traits. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) revealed 77 significant loci associated with 16 phenotypic traits during the vegetative stage experiment and a total of 85 significant loci associated with 13 phenotypic traits during the generative stage experiment for traits such as leaf area, number of green leaves, grain yield, harvest index and stem length. For traits with significant GxT interactions, genotypic differences for relative values were analysed using one way ANOVA. More than 110 loci for GxT interaction were found for 17 phenotypic traits explaining in many cases more than 50% of the genetic variance.

AB - Water deficit is one of the major limitations to food production worldwide and most climate change scenarios predict an aggravation of the situation. To face the expected increase in drought stress in the coming years, breeders are working to elucidate the genetic control of barley growth and productivity traits under water deficit. Barley is known as a relatively drought tolerant crop and genetic variability was observed for drought tolerance traits. The objectives of the present study were the quantification of morphological and physiological responses in a collection of 209 spring barley genotypes to drought stress, and the genetic analysis by genome-wide association study to find quantitative trait loci (QTL) and the allele contributions for each of the investigated traits. In six pot experiments, 209 spring barley genotypes were grown under a well-watered and water-limited regime. Stress phases were initiated individually for each genotype at the beginning of tillering and spiking for the vegetative- and the generative stage experiments, respectively, and terminated when the transpiration rates of stress treatments reached 10% of the well-watered control. After the stress phase, a total of 42 productivity related traits such as the dry matter of plant organs, tiller number, leaf length, leaf area, amount of water soluble carbohydrates in the stems, proline content in leaves and osmotic adjustment of corresponding well-watered and stressed plants were analysed, and QTL analyses were performed to find marker-trait associations. Significant water deficit effects were observed for almost all traits and significant genotype x treatment interactions (GxT) were observed for 37 phenotypic traits. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) revealed 77 significant loci associated with 16 phenotypic traits during the vegetative stage experiment and a total of 85 significant loci associated with 13 phenotypic traits during the generative stage experiment for traits such as leaf area, number of green leaves, grain yield, harvest index and stem length. For traits with significant GxT interactions, genotypic differences for relative values were analysed using one way ANOVA. More than 110 loci for GxT interaction were found for 17 phenotypic traits explaining in many cases more than 50% of the genetic variance.

KW - Adaptation, Physiological

KW - Analysis of Variance

KW - Biomass

KW - Dehydration

KW - Droughts

KW - Genetic Variation

KW - Genotype

KW - Hordeum/anatomy & histology

KW - Inheritance Patterns/genetics

KW - Phenotype

KW - Quantitative Trait Loci/genetics

KW - Regression Analysis

KW - Seasons

KW - Water

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85090011206&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0237834

DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0237834

M3 - Article

C2 - 32853269

AN - SCOPUS:85090011206

VL - 15

JO - PLOS ONE

JF - PLOS ONE

SN - 1932-6203

IS - 8

M1 - e0237834

ER -