Solanaceae is a well-known flowering plant family by its economically important crops and broad diversity. On the one hand, it includes many of the most useful plants – potato, tomato, eggplant and pepper – and on the other hand, it contains some of the most noxious – tobacco, henbane – while other species are exquisitely decorative ornamentals, such as petunias, painted tongue flowers and chalice vines.
Solanaceous plants play a vital part in human nutrition and global economies, but they also provide raw materials and resources for medicines and other purposes. The loss of this unique diversity has accelerated to an unprecedented level due to climate change and human activity. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), 7% of all solanaceous species are (critically) endangered, while 3% are nearly threatened or vulnerable, and seven species are already extinct in the wild. Since the contributions of wild relatives of crops to food security depend on their conservation and accessibility for use, it is critical to safeguard their genetic diversity from extinction in the field.
Tackling the loss of this diversity to sustain ecosystem services needs technological advances accompanied by societal changes to better manage our natural capital before unexpected impacts start snowballing into destructive consequences. The unprecedented rate of single nucleotide polymorphism identification is improving our ability to understand phenotypic diversity at the genomic level.
Genome-to-phenome research is crucial for detecting allelic variation for a wide range of traits and accelerating the adaptation of Solanaceae to climate change. Candidate genes/alleles can be subjected to functional characterization studies via ‘loss-of-function’ and ‘gain-of-function’ techniques. Although there are no readily usable in vitro regeneration and transformation protocols for all Solanaceae, genome editing technologies are increasingly being used to study gene function and accelerate gene transfer.
The densely interspersed chiasma that these paths produce in the transition from academic to applied sciences and vice versa underlines the immense potential of this plant family to translate agendas across a variety of research settings, as well as the professional prospects that this potential offers.
This draws attention to the often neglected but still prominent feature of the Solanaceae that we would like to highlight in our research topic: the astonishing diversity with which this plant family is bringing together heterogeneous and idiosyncratic elements of technoscientific culture and knowledge in order to address biological phenomena from biodiversity to crop breeding under an alarmingly changing climate.
In this Research Topic, we would like to consider submission of high-quality Original Research (or Brief Research Report), Review (Systematic or Mini Review), Methods, Perspective or Technology and Code articles on topics related to the above-mentioned goals.
Solanaceae is a well-known flowering plant family by its economically important crops and broad diversity. On the one hand, it includes many of the most useful plants – potato, tomato, eggplant and pepper – and on the other hand, it contains some of the most noxious – tobacco, henbane – while other species are exquisitely decorative ornamentals, such as petunias, painted tongue flowers and chalice vines.
Solanaceous plants play a vital part in human nutrition and global economies, but they also provide raw materials and resources for medicines and other purposes. The loss of this unique diversity has accelerated to an unprecedented level due to climate change and human activity. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), 7% of all solanaceous species are (critically) endangered, while 3% are nearly threatened or vulnerable, and seven species are already extinct in the wild. Since the contributions of wild relatives of crops to food security depend on their conservation and accessibility for use, it is critical to safeguard their genetic diversity from extinction in the field.
Tackling the loss of this diversity to sustain ecosystem services needs technological advances accompanied by societal changes to better manage our natural capital before unexpected impacts start snowballing into destructive consequences. The unprecedented rate of single nucleotide polymorphism identification is improving our ability to understand phenotypic diversity at the genomic level.
Genome-to-phenome research is crucial for detecting allelic variation for a wide range of traits and accelerating the adaptation of Solanaceae to climate change. Candidate genes/alleles can be subjected to functional characterization studies via ‘loss-of-function’ and ‘gain-of-function’ techniques. Although there are no readily usable in vitro regeneration and transformation protocols for all Solanaceae, genome editing technologies are increasingly being used to study gene function and accelerate gene transfer.
The densely interspersed chiasma that these paths produce in the transition from academic to applied sciences and vice versa underlines the immense potential of this plant family to translate agendas across a variety of research settings, as well as the professional prospects that this potential offers.
This draws attention to the often neglected but still prominent feature of the Solanaceae that we would like to highlight in our research topic: the astonishing diversity with which this plant family is bringing together heterogeneous and idiosyncratic elements of technoscientific culture and knowledge in order to address biological phenomena from biodiversity to crop breeding under an alarmingly changing climate.
In this Research Topic, we would like to consider submission of high-quality Original Research (or Brief Research Report), Review (Systematic or Mini Review), Methods, Perspective or Technology and Code articles on topics related to the above-mentioned goals.
