A better understanding of flowering genes in legume crops will be valuable in understanding their prehistoric expansion from regions of initial domestication, in breeding for new environments and in accessing wider genetic diversity present in wild crop relatives. We are using a comparative approach to explore the genetic network controlling flowering time adaptation in a number of legume species. In addition to the use of induced mutants in pea (Pisum sativum) and barrel medic (Medicago truncatula), recent work has focused on characterization of natural variation in crop species including pea, lentil (Lens culinaris) and chickpea (Cicer arietinum). We have performed comparative phylogenetic analyses of many of the major flowering gene families in legumes, and examined the expression patterns of key genes, including members of the FT family of florigen genes. A positional candidate gene approach has enabled the identification of putative causal genes for major flowering loci and shown a striking conservation in certain genomic regions conferring flowering time adaptation across several species. Evidence on the molecular and physiological basis for adaptive changes at these loci will be presented and possible reasons for their prominence will be discussed.

Weller, J. L. et al.- Resumen de la comunicación oral presentada en la "8th International Conference on Legume Genetics and Genomics (ICLGG)", que tuvo lugar en Siófok, Hungría, entre el 18 y el 22 de septiembre de 2017.

Peer reviewed