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Brachypodium and the Abiotic Environment

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Genetics and Genomics of Brachypodium

Part of the book series: Plant Genetics and Genomics: Crops and Models ((PGG,volume 18))

Abstract

Brachypodium distachyon and its congeners are found in diverse environments throughout the temperate regions of the world. Brachypodium species also show considerable variation in life history strategy, with species representing short-season annual habits and other species persisting for multiple years. This variation in ecological setting and life history suggests the existence of considerable genetic diversity in adaptation to the abiotic environment, both in constitutive tolerance to local conditions and in the capacity of single genotypes to acclimate to changing or unpredictable conditions. We review the limited but growing empirical literature on the physiology, development, and molecular biology of the interaction of Brachypodium with the abiotic environment. We highlight how these findings inform studies of ecologically and agriculturally-important plant species, and identify areas of future research that will extend the utility of Brachypodium as a model genetic system for understanding plant-environment interactions.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Jesse Lasky for generating Fig. 1. T.E.J. is supported by the DOE Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER), grant no. DE-SC0008451 and NSF funding through the Plant Genome Research Program (IOS-0922457).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and The Arnold Arboretum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

    David L. Des Marais

  2. Department of Integrative Biology and Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Thomas E. Juenger

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  1. David L. Des Marais
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  2. Thomas E. Juenger
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Correspondence to David L. Des Marais or Thomas E. Juenger .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. DOE Joint Genome Institute, Walnut Creek, California, USA

    John P. Vogel

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Des Marais, D.L., Juenger, T.E. (2015). Brachypodium and the Abiotic Environment. In: Vogel, J. (eds) Genetics and Genomics of Brachypodium. Plant Genetics and Genomics: Crops and Models, vol 18. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/7397_2015_13

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