title: Naturally occurring diversity helps to reveal genes of adaptive importance in legumes.
abstract: Environmental changes challenge plants and drive adaptation to new conditions, suggesting that natural biodiversity may be a source of adaptive alleles acting through phenotypic plasticity and/or micro-evolution. Crosses between accessions differing for a given trait have been the most common way to disentangle genetic and environmental components. Interestingly, such man-made crosses may combine alleles that never meet in nature. Another way to discover adaptive alleles, inspired by evolution, is to survey large ecotype collections and to use association genetics to identify loci of interest. Both of these two genetic approaches are based on the use of biodiversity and may eventually help us in identifying the genes that plants use to respond to challenges such as short-term stresses or those due to global climate change. In legumes, two wild species, Medicago truncatula and Lotus japonicus, plus the cultivated soybean (Glycine max) have been adopted as models for genomic studies. In this review, we will discuss the resources, limitations and future plans for a systematic use of biodiversity resources in model legumes to pinpoint genes of adaptive importance in legumes, and their application in breeding.
authors.affiliation: EcoLab Laboratoire Écologie Fonctionnelle et Environnement, Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse, Ecole Nationale Supérieure Agronomique de Toulouse, Université Fédérale de Toulouse Castanet Tolosan, France ; EcoLab Laboratoire Écologie Fonctionnelle et Environnement, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Castanet Tolosan, France.
authors.forename: Laurent
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gentzbittel
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Centre for Carbohydrate Recognition and Signalling, Aarhus University Aarhus, Denmark.
authors.forename: Stig U
authors.initials: SU
authors.lastname: Andersen
authors.affiliation: EcoLab Laboratoire Écologie Fonctionnelle et Environnement, Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse, Ecole Nationale Supérieure Agronomique de Toulouse, Université Fédérale de Toulouse Castanet Tolosan, France ; EcoLab Laboratoire Écologie Fonctionnelle et Environnement, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Castanet Tolosan, France.
authors.forename: Cécile
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ben
authors.affiliation: EcoLab Laboratoire Écologie Fonctionnelle et Environnement, Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse, Ecole Nationale Supérieure Agronomique de Toulouse, Université Fédérale de Toulouse Castanet Tolosan, France ; EcoLab Laboratoire Écologie Fonctionnelle et Environnement, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Castanet Tolosan, France.
authors.forename: Martina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rickauer
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Centre for Carbohydrate Recognition and Signalling, Aarhus University Aarhus, Denmark.
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Stougaard
authors.affiliation: Department of Plant Pathology, University of Minnesota St. Paul, MN, USA ; Department of Plant Biology, University of Minnesota St. Paul, MN, USA.
authors.forename: Nevin D
authors.initials: ND
authors.lastname: Young
keywords: GWAS; Glycine max; Lotus japonicus; Medicago truncatula; gene expression; genetics; whole genome sequencing