Informations et ressources scientifiques
sur le développement des zones arides et semi-arides

Titre : Natural metabolic variation in chickpea under drought stress

Auteur : Pierides, Iro

Université de soutenance : Universität Wien

Grade : Masterarbeit 2022

Résumé
With increasing climate changes and increasing world population, new and effective measures must be taken to ensure global food security. Protein-rich legumes such as the underexplored chickpea crop provide alternative protein sources. The high adaptive flexibility of chickpea to a range of temperatures and climatic conditions makes this legume suitable for exploring its drought resilience in the European climate. In this thesis, metabolomic analysis of 42 chickpea genotypes grown in a field experiment under well-watered and drought stress conditions was carried out. Genotypes with accession numbers ICC1194, ICC1923, ICC2629, ICC4639, ICC4657, ICC6293, ICC12299, ICC12916 and ICC14669 were identified to exhibit the strongest drought response. The main role of glutamate and sugar pathways in the drought response was identified. The shikimic acid pathway was found to be associated to seed yield under drought by a random forest model. In addition, genotypes were clustered in 3 different groups (linear, intermediate and plastic) according to their trajectory shape over three timepoints. The importance of dynamical systems tools, such as the Jacobian matrix, was highlighted through stability analysis of trajectory transitions of the different genotype groups between the last two time points. In particular, the intermediate group was found to likely undergo an adaptive trajectory response with the arginine to glutamine positive feedback loop controlling the transition. This provided a link between photorespiration and threonic acid, one of the strongest statistical biomarkers identified in the main drought response.

Présentation