Evolutionary Biology Sandbox
Assignment 7: Revised Wikipedia Assignment 12/11/2015
Agropyron cristatum is a known among other grasses and wheats for its relatively high granivory. Granivory, or granivores, describe the interaction between animals and seeds. Agropyron cristatum's high granivore indicates that that animals feed on the seeds of the plant as their primary, or even exclusive, food source. Although this raises concerns about the plant's continued ability to reproduce if its seeds are all being consumed, the high granivory of this species does indicate that Agropyron cristatum is an important food source.
Studies have been done in search of the cause of Agropyron cristatum's increased granivory, but as of yet a high relative granivory has not been proven to be a unique characteristic of A. cristatum, and could actually be contributed to factors other than the plant's genome, such as the environmental conditions.
Invading Agropyron cristatum populations have been found to have a higher granivory than native grasslands and maintain dominance even when native grassland species are reintroduced[1]. This current study indicated that the competitiveness of Agropyron cristatum is not the cause of its increased granivory[1]. The study did show that although A. cristatum was found to have higher granivory, after 2 years the difference between A. cristatum's granivory and that of native species lessens, and that there was no apparent preference among the animals for either wheat[1]. Therefore, the factors responsible for Agropyron cristatum's high granivore content are still relatively unknown.
One promising factor that could lead to and be responsible for increased granivore in Agropyron cristatum is a certain genetic difference found on chromosome 6 of plants with a higher granivore content.[2] Plants with a translocation on chromosome 6P yield wheat of greater weight and longer spike length than those without the mutation[2]. Agropyron cristatum possesses higher tiller number, higher floret numbers, and greater resistance to various pathogens such as wheat rusts, powdery mildew, and barley yellow dwarf virus than many of its close wheat relatives [2]. It has been used to cross-breed with other species of grass and wheat to transfer a greater disease resistance to them, as well as enhance their properties as a food source.[2] This cross-breeding involves the transferring of the chromosome 6P translocation to the species it is cross-breeding with.[2] Chromosome 6P of A. cristatum has also been proven to play an important role in regulating fertile tiller number and it possesses positive and negative regulators of tiller number[3]. These regulators were specifically found to be on the 6PS and 6PL chromosome arms[3]. High floret numbers and number of kernals per spike is controlled by genes located on chromosome 6P of Agropyron cristatum[4]. Agropyron cristatum’s genes can be used to instill leaf resistance in other species of wheat [4]. Three backcrosses between Agropyron cristatum and Aegilops tauschii produces a number stable, fertile lines of Aegilops tauschii that then has resistance to leaf rust. [4] Also, multi-spike cultivars of A. cristatum have been found to be more stable agronomically and achieve higher yields than cultivars with large-spike type.[3]
Agropyron cristatum shows and immense toughness to a wide range of environmental conditions. Agropyron cristatum can be grown in cold temperatures, drought conditions, and relatively high amounts of salinity[5] . It also has a resistance to barley yellow dwarf, wheat streak mosaic viruses, and leaf rust disease as well as containing high protein content[5].
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- ^ a b c Radtke TM, and Wilson SD (2015). A limited role for apparent competition via granivory in the persistence of a grassland invader. Journal of Vegetation Science 26: 995-1004.
- ^ a b c d e Zhang J, Zhang JP, Liu WH, Han HM, Lu YQ, Yang XM, Li XQ, Li LH (2015). Introgression of Agropyron cristatum 6P chromosome segment into common wheat for enhanced thousand-grain weight and spike length. Theoretical and Applied Genetics 128: 1827-1837
- ^ a b c Ye XL, Lu YQ, Liu WH, Chen GY, Han HM, Zhang JP, Yang XM, Li XQ, Gao AN, Li LH (2015). The effects of chromosome 6P on fertile tiller number of wheat as revealed in wheat-Agropyron cristatum chromosome 5A/6P translocation lines. Theoretical and Applied Genetics 128: 797-811.
- ^ a b c Ochoa, V; Madrid, E; Said, M; Rubiales, D; and Cabrera, A (2015). Molecular and cytogenetic characterization of a common wheat- Agropyron cristatum chromosome translocation conferring resistance to leaf rust. Euphytica 201: 89-95.
- ^ a b Zhang JP, Liu WH, Han HM, Song LQ, Bai L, Gao ZH, Zhang Y, Yang XM, Li XQ, Gao AN, Li LH (2015). De novo transcriptome sequencing of Agropyron cristatum to identify available gene resources for the enhancement of wheat. Genomics 106: 129-136.