Unlocking nature's drought resilience: a focus on the parsimonious root phenotype and specialised root metabolism in wild Medicago populations

Calleja Satrustegui, Aitziber; Echeverría Obanos, Andrés; Ariz Arnedo, Idoia; Peralta de Andrés, Francisco Javier; González García, Esther

Unlocking nature's drought resilience: a focus on the parsimonious root phenotype and specialised root metabolism in wild Medicago populations

dc.contributor.author	Calleja Satrustegui, Aitziber
dc.contributor.author	Echeverría Obanos, Andrés
dc.contributor.author	Ariz Arnedo, Idoia
dc.contributor.author	Peralta de Andrés, Francisco Javier
dc.contributor.author	González García, Esther
dc.contributor.department	Ciencias	es_ES
dc.contributor.department	Zientziak	eu
dc.contributor.department	Institute for Multidisciplinary Research in Applied Biology - IMAB	en
dc.contributor.funder	Unviersidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa
dc.date.accessioned	2025-01-07T09:59:33Z
dc.date.available	2025-01-07T09:59:33Z
dc.date.issued	2024-10-28
dc.date.updated	2025-01-07T09:47:09Z
dc.description.abstract	Background and aims: crop wild relatives, exposed to strong natural selection, exhibit effective tolerance traits against stresses. While an aggressive root proliferation phenotype has long been considered advantageous for a range of stresses, it appears to be counterproductive under drought due to its high metabolic cost. Recently, a parsimonious root phenotype, metabolically more efficient, has been suggested to be better adapted to semiarid environments, although it is not clear that this phenotype is a trait exhibited by crop wild relatives. Methods: firstly, we analysed the root phenotype and carbon metabolism in four Medicago crop wild relatives adapted to a semiarid environment and compared them with the cultivated M. truncatula Jemalong (A17). Secondly, we exposed the cultivated (probably the least adapted genotype to aridity) and the wild (the most common one in arid zones) M. truncatula genotypes to water deficit. The carbon metabolism response in different parts of their roots was analysed. Results: a reduced carbon investment per unit of root length was a common trait in the four wild genotypes, indicative of an evolution towards a parsimonious root phenotype. During the water deficit experiment, the wild M. truncatula showed higher tolerance to drought, along with a superior ability of its taproot to partition sucrose and enhanced capacity of its fibrous roots to maintain sugar homeostasis. Conclusion: a parsimonious root phenotype and the spatial specialization of root carbon metabolism represent two important drought tolerance traits. This work provides relevant findings to understand the response of Medicago species roots to water deficit.	en
dc.description.sponsorship	Open Access funding provided by Universidad Pública de Navarra. Andrés Echeverría was supported by a predoctoral fellowship from the Government of Navarra, Idoia Ariz by a MCIN RyC Programme MCIN/AEI/https://doi.org/10.13039/501100011033 and by 'European Union Next Generation EU/PRTR' under grant No. RYC2021-032345-I, and this work by a knowledge transfer UPNA-Bardenas Reales Committee [contract 2021907148].
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf	en
dc.identifier.citation	Calleja-Satrustegui, A., Echeverría, A., Ariz, I., Peralta de Andrés, J., González, E. M. (2024) Unlocking nature's drought resilience: a focus on the parsimonious root phenotype and specialised root metabolism in wild Medicago populations. Plant and Soil, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-024-06943-w
dc.identifier.doi	10.1007/s11104-024-06943-w
dc.identifier.issn	0032-079X
dc.identifier.uri	https://academica-e.unavarra.es/handle/2454/52822
dc.language.iso	eng
dc.publisher	Springer Nature
dc.relation.ispartof	Plant and Soil, (2024), 1-17
dc.relation.projectID	info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/MCIN//RYC2021-032345-I/
dc.relation.publisherversion	https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-024-06943-w
dc.rights	© The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.
dc.rights.accessRights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.rights.uri	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subject	Crop wild relatives	en
dc.subject	Fibrous root	en
dc.subject	Taproot	en
dc.subject	Root functioning	en
dc.subject	Semiarid environment	en
dc.subject	Alkaline invertase	en
dc.title	Unlocking nature's drought resilience: a focus on the parsimonious root phenotype and specialised root metabolism in wild Medicago populations	en
dc.type	info:eu-repo/semantics/article
dc.type.version	info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
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