WILD-ROOTS - From wild to crop: unravelling the impact of root domestication on drought tolerance

The domestication of crops revolutionised human life. This process induced changes in plant traits that produced plants that grew faster and yielded higher harvests. However, very little is known about how plant roots have changed throughout the domestication process. Climate change is causing an increase in droughts in many parts of the world. Since roots are the pathway through which water enters the plant, they are critical to understanding drought tolerance. The root traits of ancestral crops could offer a pathway to increasing the drought tolerance of modern crops.

To do this, we must focus our efforts on the impact of domestication on roots and the rhizosphere (the area surrounding the root, including microbes), rather than focusing solely on above-ground traits, as has traditionally been done. WILD-ROOTS will test the general hypothesis that crop domestication caused changes in root and rhizosphere traits that decreased the drought tolerance of crops compared to their wild relatives.