BARIToNE: Improving barley climate resilience using a candidate gene approach (Project code 24H)

Supervisors

Lead supervisor – Dr Martin Balcerowicz, University of Dundee

Second supervisor – Dr Craig Simpson, James Hutton Institute

Industry supervisor – Ms Gillian MacDonald, Glenmorangie

Location

This project will be based at the James Hutton Institute, Invergowrie and the appointed student will register at University of Dundee as the degree awarding institution.

The project

This four-year PhD studentship is fully funded by the BARIToNE Collaborative Training Partnership (from Sept. 2024) and offered in partnership between the James Hutton Institute, University of Dundee and Glenmorangie.

Rising temperatures brought about by climate change are major threat to agriculture and food security: in wheat and barley, each 1°C increase above optimal growth temperature is estimated to reduce yield by 5-6%. A detailed understanding of the mechanisms by which plants respond to high ambient temperature is thus vital to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change on crop production.

PHYTOCHROME INTERACTING FACTORs (PIFs) act as a key signalling hub for temperature responses in Arabidopsis (1). In the monocot crops maize and rice, these transcription factors regulate multiple aspects of vegetative and reproductive development and have been harnessed to improve grain size and yield under control conditions and abiotic stresses such as heat and drought (2). Putative PIF homologues are found in barley, but their relevance for growth and yield remains unknown. Taking advantage of existing transcriptomic datasets (3), we will explore how temperature affects transcription and alternative splicing of these genes and their respective transcripts. Employing transgenic approaches and newest gene editing techniques available through the James Hutton Biotechnology Facility, we will generate knock-out and overexpression lines for selected genes and analyse the consequences for (a) vegetative growth, (b) reproductive development and (c) grain quality and yield under control and stress conditions. This project will provide fundamental insight into temperature signalling processes in barley and has the clear potential to identify new breeding targets for the generation of “climate-ready” barley varieties.

To discuss the project in more detail please contact Dr Martin Balcerowicz: [email protected]

How to apply (Project code 24H)

All applications to the BARIToNE training programme should be made through the online pre-application form linked here. The advertised deadline is 31^st May, but interviews will be arranged as soon as eligible candidates apply.