About 20 plant species provides the vast majority - up to 90% - of our food. At a global scale, the reliance on this limited number of “major” crops, coupled with decreasing genetic variation within each of them, is more and more being recognized as a risk to food security, environment, and our own health. This becomes clearer whenever a main production area for a particular major crop is affected. One way to mitigate this risk is to look at species that have been replaced by major crops but were once well fitted within each different agricultural system.
Many terms have been used to define them: “neglected”, “underutilized”, “orphan”, “minor”, and “future” crops; for simplicity, we will refer to them as NUCS (Neglected-Underutilized Crop Species). They vary across taxonomy and uses, stretching across legumes, cereals, fruits, vegetables, leafy green, algae, mushrooms, and tubers. What they have in common is that they have been left behind by mainstream research and policies, despite their traditional place in human nutrition (and society), and their potential for making agriculture more resilient and sustainable.
While there is increasing contribution towards characterizing the potential of a few NUCS, leading them out of marginalization and placing them within improvement programs, there is still a need for more studies taking an integrated, multi-omics approach to dissect traits linked to stress resistance, or nutritional value. For many others, research has yet - or has just started - to pick up, and they still required basic tools for bringing them into more advanced studies.
Submissions to this Research Topic should be related to NUCS. In line with scope of the journal, studies advancing our understanding of the plant biology of NUCS will be considered, but we encourage the submission of manuscripts focusing on:
1) Studies on resilience traits (e.g., stress tolerance), adaptation (e.g., photo-thermal effect), and nutritional value. Particularly of interest will be comparative studies in which NUCS are assessed alongside major, better-studied crops and varieties.
These should include an integrated approach (multi-omics), using a combination between different areas such as: genetics, physiology, phenomics, metabolomics, ionomics, and/or bioinformatics.
2) Generation of tools for the advancement of research on NUCS that still lack these. For example:
- the generation of mapping populations, or characterization of a panel of common accessions for phenotypic and genetic studies.
- development of molecular markers.
- transcriptome databases.
3) Studies on applications of high-throughput phenotyping approaches, particularly for the optimization and inclusion of these approaches on NUCS.
4) NUCS studies using translational research approaches, transferring knowledge and resources from one species to another.
Please note: Frontiers in Plant Science does not accept solely descriptive studies - studies which report responses to treatments and descriptive reports of ‘Omics studies will not be considered if they do not progress biological understanding of these responses.
About 20 plant species provides the vast majority - up to 90% - of our food. At a global scale, the reliance on this limited number of “major” crops, coupled with decreasing genetic variation within each of them, is more and more being recognized as a risk to food security, environment, and our own health. This becomes clearer whenever a main production area for a particular major crop is affected. One way to mitigate this risk is to look at species that have been replaced by major crops but were once well fitted within each different agricultural system.
Many terms have been used to define them: “neglected”, “underutilized”, “orphan”, “minor”, and “future” crops; for simplicity, we will refer to them as NUCS (Neglected-Underutilized Crop Species). They vary across taxonomy and uses, stretching across legumes, cereals, fruits, vegetables, leafy green, algae, mushrooms, and tubers. What they have in common is that they have been left behind by mainstream research and policies, despite their traditional place in human nutrition (and society), and their potential for making agriculture more resilient and sustainable.
While there is increasing contribution towards characterizing the potential of a few NUCS, leading them out of marginalization and placing them within improvement programs, there is still a need for more studies taking an integrated, multi-omics approach to dissect traits linked to stress resistance, or nutritional value. For many others, research has yet - or has just started - to pick up, and they still required basic tools for bringing them into more advanced studies.
Submissions to this Research Topic should be related to NUCS. In line with scope of the journal, studies advancing our understanding of the plant biology of NUCS will be considered, but we encourage the submission of manuscripts focusing on:
1) Studies on resilience traits (e.g., stress tolerance), adaptation (e.g., photo-thermal effect), and nutritional value. Particularly of interest will be comparative studies in which NUCS are assessed alongside major, better-studied crops and varieties.
These should include an integrated approach (multi-omics), using a combination between different areas such as: genetics, physiology, phenomics, metabolomics, ionomics, and/or bioinformatics.
2) Generation of tools for the advancement of research on NUCS that still lack these. For example:
- the generation of mapping populations, or characterization of a panel of common accessions for phenotypic and genetic studies.
- development of molecular markers.
- transcriptome databases.
3) Studies on applications of high-throughput phenotyping approaches, particularly for the optimization and inclusion of these approaches on NUCS.
4) NUCS studies using translational research approaches, transferring knowledge and resources from one species to another.
Please note: Frontiers in Plant Science does not accept solely descriptive studies - studies which report responses to treatments and descriptive reports of ‘Omics studies will not be considered if they do not progress biological understanding of these responses.
