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Abstract
With predicted global changes in temperature and precipitation, drought will increasingly impose a challenge to biomass production. Most of the bioenergy crops have some degree of drought susceptibility as revealed for example through measures of low water-use efficiency (WUE). It is imperative to improve drought tolerance and WUE in bioenergy crops for sustainable biomass production in arid and semi-arid regions. Genetics and functional genomics can play critical roles in generating knowledge to inform and aid genetic improvement for drought tolerance in bioenergy crops. The molecular aspects of drought response have been extensively investigated in model plants like Arabidopsis, yet our understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying drought tolerance in bioenergy crops is limited. Plants in general exhibit various responses to drought stress depending on species and genotype. A rational strategy for studying drought tolerance in bioenergy crops is to translate the knowledge from model plants relative to the unique features associated with individual bioenergy species and genotypes. In this review, we summarize the general knowledge concerning drought responsive pathways, with a focus on the identification of commonality and specialty in drought responsive mechanisms among alternate species and genotypes. We describe the genomic resources developed for bioenergy crops and discuss genetic and epigenetic regulation of drought responses. We also examine comparative and evolutionary genomics as a means to leverage the ever-increasing genomics resources and provide new insights beyond what is known from studies on individual species. Finally, we outline future opportunities for studying drought tolerance using the emerging technologies.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This material is based in part upon work supported by the Department of Energy, Office of Science, Genomic Science Program under Award Number DE-SC0008834, the U.S. DOE BioEnergy Science Center and the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The BioEnergy Science Center is a U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Research Center supported by the Office of Biological and Environmental Research in the DOE Office of Science. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory is managed by UT-Battelle, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract Number DE-AC05-00OR22725.