Project Number: 3622-21000-027-07
Project Type: Grant

Start Date: Jan 07, 2008
End Date: Aug 14, 2010

Objective:
1. Develop/enhance courses on Plant Breeding, Biotechnology, and Propagation and Plant Environmental Stress Physiology and Ecology at the University of Nevada-Reno (UNR) that will exploit research materials and methods aimed at bridging the gap between genomics, physiology, and plant breeding. 2. Identification of novel genetic determinants involved in desiccation tolerance from two vascular desiccation tolerant, resurrection species, the ancient Lycophyte Selaginella lepidophylla (club moss) and the monocotyledonous angiosperm Sporobolus stapfianus (African Inselberg grass). 3. Identification of the distinctive response of resurrection species to water deficit stress in closely related species pairs that have retained or lost desiccation tolerance (e.g., S. lepidophylla (tolerant) and S. moellendorffii (sensitive); Sporobolus stapfianus (tolerant) and Sporobolus pyrimidalis (sensitive). 4. Develop an integrated research and extension project using Sporobolus as a forage grass.

Approach:
1. Conduct rapid gene discovery via the establishment of expressed sequence tag (EST) databases derived from normalized cDNA libraries. 2. Conduct mRNA expression profiling and map the gene networks responsible for desiccation tolerance and recovery using oligonucleotide microarray-based expression profiling. 3. Establish breeding populations and subject these to forage productivity performance trials under different water-deficit and nutrient availability conditions.