Deciphering Genetic Architecture for Development of Climate-Smart Crops

Climate change is increasingly threatening global agricultural productivity through the rising frequency and intensity of abiotic stresses such as drought, heat, salinity, and their combined effects. Developing climate-smart crop varieties capable of maintaining productivity under changing environmental conditions has therefore become a major priority for sustainable agriculture and global food security. Achieving this goal requires a comprehensive understanding of the genetic architecture underlying stress tolerance and the effective integration of genomic discoveries into crop improvement programs. Recent advances in genomics have significantly improved our ability to dissect complex traits associated with climate resilience. These approaches enable the identification of QTLs, candidate genes, superior haplotypes, and novel alleles governing stress adaptation, while functional genomics studies involving differential gene expression, splice variants, and novel transcripts are enhancing our understanding of stress-responsive molecular pathways. Furthermore, pan-genomics and allele mining approaches are enabling the exploration of hidden genetic variation, including structural variations and presence–absence variations, that contribute to environmental adaptation. At the breeding level, marker-assisted selection, gene pyramiding, genomic selection, and prediction models are accelerating the development of climate-resilient crop varieties under stress environments.This Research Topic aims to highlight recent advances in deciphering the genetic basis of abiotic stress tolerance and integrating genomics-driven approaches for climate-smart crop improvement. The Topic will focus on QTL mapping, GWAS, functional genomics, haplotype analysis, pan-genomics, allele mining, marker-assisted breeding, genomic selection, and integrative genomic approaches for development of climate-resilient crop varieties capable of sustaining productivity under changing climatic conditions.Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:• Dissection of complex trait architecture through mapping of main-effect, epistatic, and conditional QTLs for tolerance to single and combined stresses using linkage mapping and GWAS • Identifying genomic regions and candidate genes associated with abiotic stress tolerance under changing climatic conditions• Functional characterization of stress-responsive genes including differential gene expression, identification of splice variants and discovery of novel transcripts under stress environments • Fine mapping of genomic regions and QTLs associated with climate-resilience traits in crop plants • Haplotype analysis for identification of superior allelic combinations governing stress tolerance traits • Utilization of pan-genomics and allele mining approaches for discovery of novel alleles associated with climate resilience in crop plants• Application of marker-assisted selection and marker-assisted gene pyramiding for development of climate-smart crop varieties • Use of genomic selection and prediction models for early-stage estimation of genomic breeding values under stress environments to accelerate breeding efficiency • Integration of QTL mapping, GWAS, transcriptomics, pan-genomics, and genomic-assisted breeding approaches for development of climate-smart crop varieties capable of sustaining productivity under changing climatic conditions Topic editors: Karthik Kumar M, Sanjeev Kumar Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/83058/deciphering-genetic-architecture-for-development-of-climate-smart-crops