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Global Plant Biodiversity for Sustaining Food and Environmental Security

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainability, Biodiversity and Conservation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 August 2023) | Viewed by 6561

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Penna Suprasanna

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Guest Editor

Amity Centre for Nuclear Biotechnology, Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Amity University Maharashtra, Mumbai 410206, India
Interests: agricultural biotechnology; genetic engineering; genomics; plant stress biology; new plant breeding tools
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Shri Mohan Jain

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Guest Editor

Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Helsinki, PL-27, Helsinki, Finland
Interests: germplasm conservation; molecular breeding; mutagenesis; plant biotechnology; plant tissue culture
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Sudhir Sopory

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Guest Editor

DST-SERB (Government of India) Distinguished Fellow International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Aruna Asaf Ali Marg, New Delhi, India
Interests: mechanisms of abiotic stress tolerance in plants; cross talk between different stresses and light responses in regulating the expression of genes, including regulation via microRNAs; molecular basis of stress priming mediated responses and stress memory

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Plant biodiversity has become an important issue on a global level for food, nutritional security and environmental stewardship. In the context of climate change, environmental degradation and human population explosion, there is a need to explore biodiversity at the global level to meet the challenges of food and environmental security. Biodiversity is increasingly becoming recognized as a vital issue at local, national and international levels, and there is a continued effort to find practical and workable strategies to contest genetic erosion and enhance biological diversity. Technological advances in plant biology and agriculture are now integrated to offer solutions to enhance, maintain and exploit plant biodiversity. The vastness of the plant kingdom, with almost 20,000 edible plant species, allows for a broad research scope regarding the discovery of new food crops, medicinal plants, environmentally protective plants and industrially relevant plants. In this context, understanding a plant’s biodiversity as a fundamental part of our biosphere will provide knowledge of the wide spectrum of plant species, which constitute staple food crops, edible plants, under-utilized plant species and several others that could become future food sources. It is also imperative to focus on designing crop germplasms to maximize productivity, quality and the cleaning and repurposing of environmentally degraded ecosystems.

The aim of this Special Issue is to provide a focus on current and future research endeavors that are critical to maintaining and using plant biodiversity. This requires integrated approaches from several plant and agricultural scientists that aim to analyze and devise novel biodiversity approaches to achieve food security and climate resilience. In this Special Issue, original data and review papers on the following topics are welcome:

Suggested themes:

Conservation and characterization of plant biodiversity;
Identification of crops and wild crop relatives for improving nutritional and food security;
Wild and cultivated crop diversity for climate resilience;
Screening of wild and cultivated germplasms to identify novel genes;
Cellular and molecular tools for inducing novel genetic variability;
Genomics approaches to designing novel genetic diversity

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

Plant biology, plant genetics, plant biotechnology, plant genetic engineering, plant genomics, agriculture, agronomy, horticulture, food security and biodiversity.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Penna Suprasanna
Prof. Dr. Shri Mohan Jain
Prof. Dr. Sudhir K Sopory
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

crop plants
biodiversity
plant breeding
agricultural sustainability
food security
environmental conservation

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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20 pages, 3084 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Evaluation of Agronomic Performance and Genetic Diversity Analysis Using Simple Sequence Repeats Markers in Selected Wheat Lines

by Osama Tahir, Sajid Ali Khan Bangash, Muhammad Ibrahim, Sana Shahab, Sahir Hameed Khattak, Israr Ud Din, Muhammad Nauman Khan, Aqsa Hafeez, Sana Wahab, Baber Ali, Rania M. Makki and Steve Harakeh

Sustainability 2023, 15(1), 293; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15010293 - 24 Dec 2022

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2114

Abstract

Crop improvement is the fundamental goal of plant biologists, and genetic diversity is the base for the survival of plants in nature. In this study, we evaluated 20 wheat lines for morphological and genetic diversity using eight simple sequence repeats markers from Wheat Microsatellite Consortium (WMC). Morphologically, variations were observed among all of the different wheat lines for the studied trait except for single spike weight. The highest values for different agronomic traits were recorded for the different wheat lines. The maximum days to heading were recorded for Borlaug-16 (128.3 ± 2.52 days). Similarly, days to maturity were recorded and were highest in Markaz-19 (182.3 ± 5.13 days), followed by Borlaug-16 (182.0 ± 4.58 days). The highest plant height was observed for Zincol-16 (122.3 ± 2.51 cm), followed by Markaz-19 (120.0 ± 14.79 cm) and Borlaug-16 (119.7 ± 6.8 cm). The productivity measured by 100-grain weight was highest in the case of Zincol-16 (84.0 ± 7.5 g). In contrast, wheat lines Shahkar, Sehar, and Farid-6 showed the lowest values for the traits tested. The results of genetic diversity revealed a total number of 16 alleles at eight SSR markers with an average of 2.00 ± 0.534 alleles per locus. Out of eight SSR markers, one marker (WMC105) was monomorphic, and six were dimorphic, showing two alleles at each locus. The maximum number of alleles (3) was observed for marker WMC78, in which genotypes AC and AA were predominantly found in high-yielding lines Borlaug-2016 and Zincol-2016 that were distantly related to other varieties. Zincol-2016 was also agronomically distinct from the rest of the 19 wheat lines. The results obtained from this study may be of importance for the scientific community to further explore the underlying genetic polymorphism associated high yielding varieties using marker-assisted selection for sustainable agriculture. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Global Plant Biodiversity for Sustaining Food and Environmental Security)

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Review

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21 pages, 2824 KiB

Open AccessReview

Sustainable Approaches for Biodiversity and Bioprospecting of Citrus

by Sony Kumari, Rony Bhowal and Penna Suprasanna

Sustainability 2023, 15(9), 7731; https://doi.org/10.3390/su15097731 - 08 May 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3762

Abstract

Citrus, belonging to the Rutaceae family, is a commercial fruit worldwide, and it is mainly recognized for its nutritional, anti-oxidant, and significant medicinal properties. Citruses are a group of multifaceted fruit crops with a rich traditional knowledge, deeply rooted in ethnic culture, and the fruits have been considered to be health-protecting and health-promoting food supplements since ancient times. The presence of secondary metabolites and their bioactivities has led to the development of new alternative drugs in recent years. Diverse secondary metabolites such as flavonoids, alkaloids, carotenoids, phenolic acids, and essential oils and their high bioactive properties have imparted great value to human health based on their anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, cardiovascular protective, and neuroprotective effects. The indigenous Citrus species of India—mainly Northeast India—have distinctive and valuable genetic traits, such as resistance to biotic and abiotic stress, distinctive aroma, flavor, etc. Hence, these species are considered to be repertoires of valuable genes for molecular breeding aimed at quality improvement. There is a need for awareness and understanding among the citrus-producing countries of the exploitation of biodiversity and the conservation of Citrus for sustainable development and bioprospecting. The current review presents a holistic view of Citrus biodiversity from a global perspective, including phytochemical constituents and health benefits. Advanced biotechnological and genomic approaches for Citrus trait improvement have also been discussed to highlight their relevance in Citrus improvement. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Global Plant Biodiversity for Sustaining Food and Environmental Security)

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