13 ERA-CAPS - Dimorphic fruits, seeds and seedlings as adaptation mechanisms to abiotic stress in unpredictable environments

The aim of the SeedAdapt project is to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of fruit/seed-related early-life history traits that evolved in annual plant species as adaptations to abiotic stresses. Higher plant dispersal units - diaspores, here: fruits and seeds - support the distribution and early life history of the progeny. Our project will use a comparative approach to understand the dimorphic diaspore (fruit/seed) syndromes produced on the same plant of annual Aethionema species (sister of all core Brassicaceae, cabbage family) and provide distinct adaptations as a dormancy bet-hedging strategy. The availibility of the Aethionema arabicum genome will facilitate our comparative investigation of the epigenomes, hormonomes and transcriptomes in relation to abiotic stress during sensitive developmental processes. We propose that investigating the regulatory basis of fruit, seed, and seedling trait diversity is ideal for integrating new technologies and complementary expertise in order to study a field with utmost importance in ecology, evolution, seed industry and crop breeding.

The aim of the SeedAdapt project is to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of fruit/seed-related early-life history traits that evolved in annual plant species as adaptations to abiotic stresses. Our project will use a comparative approach to understand the dimorphic diaspore (fruit/seed) syndromes produced on the same plant of annual Aethionema species (sister of all core Brassicaceae, cabbage family) and providing distinct adaptations as dormancy bet-hedging strategy. The availibility of the Aethionema arabicum genome will facilitate our comparative investigation of the epigenomes, hormonomes and transcriptomes in relation to abiotic stress during sensitive developmental processes. This comparison integrates new technologies and novel diaspore traits with an epigenetic basis and is important for research in ecology, evolution, seed industry and crop breeding.

Our interdisciplinary and comparative approach is fundamentally novel and expected to go far beyond known mechanisms. We will elucidate molecular mechanisms of fruit, seed and seedling traits that evolved in annual plant species as adaptations to changing and unpredictable environments. Although these traits are cornerstones for food quality and safety as well as for the fate of ecosystems, the molecular and developmental biodiversity of mechanisms underlying the adaptation to abiotic stresses including heat and drought are only poorly understood. Our research will not only generate new and deep scientific insight and fundamental advancements of academic interest, and will be published in internationally recognized peer-reviewed journals, it also has direct relevance to applied scientists and organizations including the crop breeding and seed industries. High-quality seeds are fundamental for the global seed industry with ca. $40 billion annual turnover. Germination, dormancy and seedling establishment are key traits for crop plants, as they determine establishment in the field and the quality of the harvested product. They are fundamental for adaptation mechanisms to changing environments, e.g. early stages in plant life-history and plant reproduction are especially vulnerable to abiotic stresses such as temperature extremes (climate change) and threaten food security.

To achieve the SeedAdapt objectives we have assembled a consortium of internationally leading experts for molecular seed biology (RHUL), fruit biology and phylogeny (Osnabrück), plant epigenetics (Vienna), plant genome evolution (Wageningen, phylogenomics and cross-species bioinformatics (Marburg) and evolutionary developmental genetics (Jena). The SeedAdapt program will be highly complementary to and synergistic to ongoing projects in the diverse partner laboratories. It opens a new area of multifaceted research in a highly relevant area of modern plant biology that would not be possible in any of the labs as stand-alone projects. To deliver the outputs and reach the goals, to connect researchers and to develop a "virtual European Aethionema lab", inter-laboratory visits and regular meetings are fundamental.

The output of the SeedAdapt project will be available to the public via open-access publication in high-impact factor journals, international meetings and an already developed website 'The Seed Biology Place' - www.seedbiology.eu (recommended in Science 313: 595, 2006) curated by the project leader (Leubner). A SeedAdapt Web Portal will be linked to it using the open source Plone content management system software and a dedicated server with sufficient data storage space will be attached to it. The SeedAdapt Web Portal and Server storage space will support easy sharing of data between the consortium members similar to the ERA-NET vSEED Portal (www.vseed.eu). The SeedAdapt Web Portal will have both a public section and a forum accessible only to consortium members to share and discuss current results. The proposed collaborative trans-national research is highly synergistic and will foster optimal utilization of resources and interdisciplinary expertise and provide an excellent training opportunity for the postdocs and students involved in the project.

In addition to presenting our work at international conferences, we will organize a SeedAdapt Symposium towards the end of the project, open to attendees from the wider scientific community in the academic and industrial fields. This will enable full and direct dissemination of the project's outcome, but also allow others to present related results and connect research in a broader context, e.g. for the molecular basis of crop and horticultural diaspore dormancy diversity. The applied aspects and importance of our findings for seed industry will be a special focus in a 'transfer session' at our SeedAdapt Symposium.