Themes

We aim at identifying traits and alleles which can give comparative advantages (crop production, yield stability and resilience, environmental balance, ecosystem services, …) under climatic scenarios affected by climate changes including periods of drought and high temperature, different cropping systems and management practices.

The strategy of MAGE is based on the fact that each genotypic trait/allele associated with tolerance to any constraint can have positive or negative consequences on crop production, depending on the environmental scenario and management practices (G x E x M).

In this context, MAGE adopts an innovative approach at the confluence of quantitative genetics, ecophysiological dissection, high throughput phenotyping, and plant modelling.

1) Analyse the time courses of expansion rates (leaf, maize silks, whole plant shoot, …), tillering, reproductive abortion, transpiration, under contrasted environmental scenarios of water deficit, evaporative demand, CO2 and light, and develop models at the process scale.

2) We analyse the genetic variability and the set of constraints and genetic correlations between traits defining the set of possibilities of responses to abiotic constraints in cereal species. MAGE drives networks of field experiments and phenotyping in high throughput phenotyping platforms (M3P) in maize and wheat, for diversity panels and new genetic diversity currently locked into maladapted maize material. We analyse the genetic controls of these parameters/traits by quantitative genetics.

3) We develop crop models (SiriusQuality for wheat and Sirius maize) including in order to analyse the consequences of the genetic variability on crop production in diverse scenarios.

Staff

Boris PARENT Researcher, Team leader	Pierre MARTRE Research Director, Director of the Unit	Bertrand MULLER Research Director	François TARDIEU Research Director	Denis VILE Research Director
Claude WELCKER Research Engineer	Randall WISSER Research Director	Juliana TEIXEIRA YASSITEPE Researcher at EMBRAPA, invited
Aurélien AUSSET Research Technician	Alexis BÉDIÉE Research Technician	Philippe BURGER Ingénieur d’Études	Loïc MANCEAU Engineer	Benoît SUARD Research Technician
Stéphane LEVEAU Non-permanent Engineer	Théophile MOREAL DE BREVANS Non-permanent Engineer	Teiki RAIHAUTI Non-permanent Engineer	Arnaud DESBIEZ-PIAT Post-doc	Florian LARUE Post-doc
Jonas RODRIGUEZ Post-doc	Jugurta BOUIDGHAGHEN PhD student	Xinxin CHEN PhD student	Justine DROUAULT PhD student	Jiang DUO PhD student
Hong Anh NGUYEN PhD student

Selected publications (2016 - 2019)

Baumont M, Parent B, Manceau L, Brown H, Driever SM, Muller B, Martre P (2019) Experimental and modeling evidence of carbon limitation of leaf appearance rate for spring and winter wheat. Journal of Experimental Botany 70: 2449-2462. doi:10.1093/jxb/erz012.

Millet E, Kruijer W, Coupel-Ledru A, Alvarez Prado S, Cabrera Bosquet L, Lacube S, Charcosset A, Welcker C, van Eeuwijk F, Tardieu F (2019) Genomic prediction of maize yield across European environmental conditions. Nature Genetics 51: 952-956. doi:10.1038/s41588-019-0414-y.

Muller B, Guédon Y, Passot S, Lobet G, Nacry P, Pagès L, Wissuwa M, Draye X (2019) Lateral roots: random diversity in adversity. Trends in Plant Science 24: 810-825. doi:10.1016/j.tplants.2019.05.011.

Sartori K, Vasseur F, Violle C, Baron E, Gerard M, Rowe N, Ayala-Garay OJ, Christophe A, Jalón LGd, Masclef D, Harscouet E, Granado MdR, Chassagneux A, Kazakou E, Vile D (2019) Leaf economics and slow-fast adaptation across the geographic range of Arabidopsis thaliana. Scientific reports 9: 10758. doi:10.1038/s41598-019-46878-2.

Alvarez Prado S, Cabrera-Bosquet L, Grau A, Coupel-Ledru A, Millet E, Welcker C, Tardieu F (2018) Phenomics allows identification of genomic regions affecting maize stomatal conductance with conditional effects of water deficit and evaporative demand. Plant, Cell and Environment 41: 314-326. doi:10.1111/pce.13083.

Martre P, Dambreville A (2018) A Model of Leaf Coordination to Scale-Up Leaf Expansion from the Organ to the Canopy. Plant Physiology 176: 704-716. doi:10.1104/pp.17.00986.

Parent B, Leclere M, Lacube S, Semenov MA, Welcker C, Martre P, Tardieu F (2018) Maize yields over Europe may increase in spite of climate change, with an appropriate use of the genetic variability of flowering time. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 115: 10642-10647. doi:10.1073/pnas.1720716115.

Roucou A, Violle C, Fort F, Roumet P, Ecarnot M, Vile D (2018) Shifts in plant functional strategies over the course of wheat domestication. Journal of Applied Ecology 55: 25-37. doi:10.1111/1365-2664.13029.

Lacube S, Fournier C, Palaffre C, Millet EJ, Tardieu F, Parent B (2017) Distinct controls of leaf widening and elongation by light and evaporative demand in maize. Plant Cell and Environment 40: 2017-2028. doi:10.1111/pce.13005.

Gouesnard B, Zanetto A, Welcker C (2016) Identification of adaptation traits to drought in collections of maize landraces from southern Europe and temperate regions. Euphytica 209: 565-584. doi:10.1007/s10681-015-1624-8.

Millet EJ, Welcker C, Kruijer W, Negro S, Coupel-Ledru A, Nicolas SD, Laborde J, Bauland C, Praud S, Ranc N, Presterl T, Tuberosa R, Bedo Z, Draye X, Usadel B, Charcosset A, Van Eeuwijk F, Tardieu F (2016) Genome-Wide Analysis of Yield in Europe: Allelic Effects Vary with Drought and Heat Scenarios. Plant Physiology 172: 749-764. doi:10.1104/pp.16.00621.

Oury V, Tardieu F, Turc O (2016) Ovary apical abortion under water deficit is caused by changes in sequential development of ovaries and in silk growth rate in maize. Plant Physiology 171: 986-996. doi:10.1104/pp.15.00268.

Key facts 

Partnership 

Projects funded 

Past members