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Diverse adaptive responses to heat and drought in the climate-resilient crop Camelina sativa
1  AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, Centre for Health & Bioresources, Tulln, Austria
Academic Editor: Dilantha Fernando

Abstract:

Climatic variability and extreme weather events are increasingly impacting crop yield and value. Camelina sativa is a versatile, low-input Brassicaceae oilseed crop valued for its high-quality seeds and its adaptability to a wide range of climate conditions and cropping systems. Camelina's innate resilience to abiotic stress offers an opportunity to uncover mechanisms behind it and explore crop plasticity. This understanding is crucial for breeding climate-tolerant oilseeds in the context of climate change. Within the project UNTWIST (Grant Agreement No. 862524; www.untwist.eu), 54 accessions were collected from across Eurasia to showcase the genetic and plastic diversity of camelina in response to abiotic stress (drought and heat) and to assess performance in multi-location field trials. Genome sequencing of the 54 accessions and population structure analysis revealed that the study panel captured most of the diversity observed in the larger publicly available population. A combinatorial approach of field trials and trials in a controlled environment was used to investigate the response of camelina to drought and heat stress and examine the diversity of responses shown by individual camelina biotypes. Camelina demonstrated resistance to heat and drought, and the population illustrated a range of different adaptive responses. Morphology and phenology showed contrasting responses to each stress. (Un)targeted metabolomic profiling revealed a reorganisation of the metabolism of camelina, with substantial variation in line-specific responses to each of the applied stresses. The same trend was found in leaf fatty acid composition remodeled by stress. Metabolic markers that could underpin future breeding have been identified, and parameters have been developed from field trials at several sites that provide a means of assessing the agronomic performance of various germplasm. Camelina productivity in the multi-location field trials was linked to the environment at key developmental stages.

Keywords: Plasticity; resilience; metabolomics; phenomics; redox; pan-genome; field trials; oilseed crop.
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