MEPOL · The role of plant primary and secondary metabolism in pollination
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2015-06-09 → 2017-06-08
- EU contribution
- €165,599
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
The role of plant primary and secondary metabolism in pollination
Without pollination, many fruits and vegetables would disappear from our tables and the variety of food in our diet would be dramatically reduced. Animal pollinators (insects, birds, bats and small mammals) by transferring pollen from flower to flower support plant fertilization, so allowing fruits and seed settings to occur. It has been estimated that animal-mediated pollination contributes to more than $200 billion of revenue, which is about 10% of the annual global agricultural production (FAOSTAT). In particular, the production of vegetables (onions, melons, zucchini, etc), fruits (strawberries, apples, almonds, etc) and stimulants (cocoa and coffee) relies heavily on pollination, as well as the production of seeds and grains. For example, 20% increase in seed yield and market value of oilseed rape was observed when insects pollinated the crop. To attract animal pollinators to the flowers, plants use signals that stimulate their visual and olfactory senses, as for example colors and scent and reward their visits with food in the form of nectar and pollen. With the final aim of improving the efficiency of flower pollination in fruits and crops, and to enhance the quality of agricultural produce, this research project has the main goal to investigate production and regulation of metabolites in flowers.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Pollination contributes to more than $200 billion of revenue, about 10% of the global agricultural production. In addition to higher yields and better quality of fruits and vegetables, pollination has evolutionary implications. Understanding the cues that attract and sustain pollinators will positively impact agriculture and our knowledge on how to preserve biodiversity. This project aims to unravel the role of plant metabolism in pollination by exploiting the genotypic variation existing among natural accessions of Arabidopsis and in combination with metabolomics and transcriptomics to identify genes that regulate the traits that plants use to attract and reward pollinators. These are fragrance, colour and nectar. Volatiles emitted from flowers of a collection of 360 Arabidopsis ecotypes will be analysed via GC-MS, and sugars, amino acids and secondary metabolites measured via HPLC and LC-MS. Genome-wide association studies will be used to correlate metabolic phenotypes and single nucleotide polymorphisms to loci that regulate pollination traits, which will be further studied to establish gene functions. Metabolites and RNA extracted at time points during flower development will be used to identify the regulatory elements of pollination-related metabolite formation. To assess the contribution of pollination traits to flower attractiveness, behavioural experiments with hoverflies will be performed. Finally, the knowledge acquired from the model plant Arabidopsis will be transferred to the oilseed crop Camelina, in which pollination efficiency will be measured as seed production. The project combines multidisciplinary approaches to expand the skills of the fellow. In turn, the fellow will bring expertise about Camelina and CRISPR to the host. At its completion, the project will provide the host institution with a large dataset of metabolic signatures for the generation and validation of new hypotheses with regard to scent, colour and nectar formation.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY · WageningenCoordinatorNetherlands
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union