Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings PowerPoint® Lectures Lectures by Greg Podgorski, Utah State University Back to the Future of Cereals Current Issues in Biology, Volume 3 Scientific American

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings Concept Review Back to the Future of Cereals Cereal crops include rice, wheat, corn, millet, barley, sorghum, and barley. Crop yield must be increased 1.5% per year to keep up with population growth. Cereal crops supply the bulk of our food.

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings Concept Review Back to the Future of Cereals Our ancestors created the crops we know by artificial selection of desirable traits; this process has been refined by modern plant breeders.

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings Concept Review Back to the Future of Cereals Selective breeding has profound effects. Corn and its wild relative, teosinte.

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings Concept Review Back to the Future of Cereals Conventional plant breeding may not be enough to continue necessary increased yields. New methods based on modern genetics give hope for the future.

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings Concept Review Back to the Future of Cereals Modern crops have little genetic diversity. Improvements in modern crops may come from tapping into the genetic wealth of their wild ancestors. Alleles from wild varieties produce dramatic and often unexpected changes in modern crop varieties. For example, alleles from a green wild tomato introduced into a pale red commercial variety created a redder hybrid.

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings Concept Review Back to the Future of Cereals Marker-assisted breeding is a new method that allows introducing select alleles into modern crops. Marker-assisted breeding.

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings Concept Review Back to the Future of Cereals Marker-assisted breeding.

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings Concept Review Back to the Future of Cereals One success of marker assisted breeding is a 17% increase in rice yield by introducing alleles from a wild rice relative into a modern crop variety. Marker-assisted breeding and other techniques made possible by modern genetics may be the best hope for continuing needed increases in crop yield.

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings Testing Your Comprehension Back to the Future of Cereals In comparison to their wild relatives, modern crop plants have a) low yields. b) low genetic diversity. c) more genes. d) few genetic markers.

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings Testing Your Comprehension Back to the Future of Cereals In comparison to their wild relatives, modern crop plants have b) low genetic diversity.

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings Testing Your Comprehension Back to the Future of Cereals To feed the world’s growing population, crop yields must be increased ______ percent each year. a) 0.01 b) 0.1 c) 1.5 d) 6.7

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings Testing Your Comprehension Back to the Future of Cereals To feed the world’s growing population, crop yields must be increased ______ percent each year. c) 1.5

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings Testing Your Comprehension Back to the Future of Cereals The method that allows researchers to tailor crops so they contain only desired alleles is a) trait mapping. b) homology searching. c) expression profiling. d) marker-assisted breeding.

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings Testing Your Comprehension Back to the Future of Cereals The method that allows researchers to tailor crops so they contain only desired alleles is d) marker-assisted breeding.

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings Biology and Society Strongly Agree Strongly Disagree A. E. C. B. D. Back to the Future of Cereals Instead of working to increase crop production by developing ever more specialized crop varieties, we should simply use more of our current crops for food instead of for animal feed and industrial products.

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings Biology and Society Strongly Agree Strongly Disagree A. E. C. B. D. Back to the Future of Cereals The development of more genetically engineered crops is essential if we are to feed a hungry world.

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings Biology and Society Strongly Agree Strongly Disagree A. E. C. B. D. Back to the Future of Cereals The kinds of plants developed from marker-assisted plant breeding are no more threatening than crops developed by conventional methods of plant breeding.

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings Thinking About Science Back to the Future of Cereals Synteny is the sharing of genes and gene organization between different species. How does the high degree of synteny between rice, wheat and corn benefit plant breeders striving to improve these crops? a) It provides a large number of genes for breeders to use for crop improvement. b) It allows genetic insights gained in one crop to be easily applied to another. c) It reduces the number of generations required for successful marker-assisted breeding. d) It provides many genetic markers for efficient marker- assisted breeding.

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings Thinking About Science Back to the Future of Cereals Synteny is the sharing of genes and gene organization between different species. How does the high degree of synteny between rice, wheat and corn benefit plant breeders striving to improve these crops? b) It allows genetic insights gained in one crop to be easily applied to another.

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings Interpreting Data and Graphs Back to the Future of Cereals Roughly how much more is the projected required corn yield for 2050 than the yield in year 2000?

Copyright © 2006 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Benjamin Cummings Interpreting Data and Graphs Back to the Future of Cereals The projected required corn yield for 2050 is roughly 2.2 times greater than the yield in year 2000 (9,000 kg/hectare in 2050 vs. 4,000 kg/hectare in 2000).