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Coordinating the Conservation of a Major Forage Grass: The Grasslands BRC’s Contribution

CRB Prairies
Published on
ImprovLollium

The Prairies Genetic Resources Centre (INRAE Lusignan) coordinated the ImprovLoliumCol activity of the forage species group within the European Cooperative Programme for Plant Genetic Resources (ECPGR) from 2019 to 2022. This ECPGR activity followed the GrassLandscape project (2015-2020), a European network research project under the FACCE-JPI ERANET+ initiative, led by the INRAE P3F research unit in Lusignan. The GrassLandscape project involved the phenotypic evaluation and high-throughput genotyping of a large panel of 438 natural populations of perennial ryegrass extracted from the collections of fifteen European genetic resources centers, aiming to identify genomic signatures of climate adaptation. The ECPGR ImprovLoliumCol activity complemented the accession documentation of the populations used in the GrassLandscape project within the EURISCO database and ensured their long-term availability by encouraging genetic resources centers to maintain them under the formal commitment of the ECPGR's AEGIS program. Data collected during the GrassLandscape project, including phenotypic evaluations of the accessions and climatic norms from the original accession sites, have been made publicly available through a forage species portal linked to the EURISCO database. Furthermore, the genomic and phenotypic data from the GrassLandscape project were used to establish two levels of core collections that represent the natural diversity of perennial ryegrass across Europe, consisting of 159 and 211 accessions, respectively. These two levels of core collections are identified on the forage species portal of EURISCO.

Contact:

  • Jean-Paul Sampoux (jean-paul.sampoux@inrae.fr)
  • Scientific Manager of the CRB Prairies
  • Unité de Recherche Pluridisciplinaire Prairies et Plantes Fourragères (UR P3F)
  • Centre INRAE Nouvelle-Aquitaine-Poitiers
  • 86600 Lusignan

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Publications from the Grasslandscape project:

  • Blanco-Pastor, JL, et al. (2019). Pleistocene climate changes, and not agricultural spread, accounts for range expansion and admixture in the dominant grassland species Lolium perenne L. Journal of Biogeography, 46, p. 1451-1465.
  • Keep, T, et al. (2020). High-throughput genome-wide genotyping to optimize the use of natural genetic resources in the grassland species perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.). Genes|Genomes|Genetics, 10, p. 3347-3364.
  • Blanco-Pastor, JL, et al. (2020) Canonical correlations reveal adaptive loci and phenotypic responses to climate in perennial ryegrass. Molecular Ecology Resources, 21, p. 849-870.
  • Keep, T, et al. (2021) To grow or survive: which are the strategies of a perennial grass to face severe seasonal stress? Functional Ecology, 35, p. 1145-1158.

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