Assistant Professor Auburn University Auburn, Alabama
Body of Abstract: Cultivated potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is the fifth most produced crop globally and the world’s most important tuber crop. Growth under elevated temperature can change how plants allocate their resources and has the potential to reduce global potato yield 8-32% by the middle of this century. Recent work has also found that elevated temperature can accelerate the rate of development and senescence in potato, as well as negatively impact potato yield and market quality. This raises questions of how elevated temperature impacts tuberization signaling, and how this change in the rate of development impacts overall tuber production. A controlled growth chamber experiment was conducted using cultivated potato (cv. Manistee) to analyze how elevated temperature impacts tuberization in potato. Down-scaled global climate models were used to determine the projected future seasonal temperatures for a major potato production region in Michigan. These projected future seasonal temperatures for the mid-century time period (2040-2070) were then used as settings for the controlled growth chamber study in order to grow plants under realistic future growth conditions. Seasonal temperatures from the period of 1980-2000 was used for the temperature settings in the control chambers. Several physiological measurements were taken, including how elevated temperature affects plant photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, production of key plant hormones and senescence. This was then linked to impacts on the plant transcriptome and co-expression patterns using RNA-Sequencing analysis. Physiological and transcriptomic data were collected at 30, 60, 90 and 120 days after planting, and belowground biomass was quantified for different developmental stages in tuber development. Overall, findings from this work will help increase our understanding of the key molecular mechanisms associated with tuberization signaling in potato, with the potential to identify key candidate genes for breeding heat tolerance in potatoes.