A global assembly of landrace oat (Avena sativa L.) accessions is a discovery resource for adaptive variation, association mapping, and trait deployment

Authors: RAHMAN, AFRINA - North Dakota State University; Sapkota, Suraj; AJAI-MOSES, OLUWATAYO - North Dakota State University; Nandety, Raja Sekhar; Fiedler, Jason; MOHAJERI NARAGHI, SEPEHR - North Dakota State University; MCMULLEN, MICHAEL - North Dakota State University; Bockelman, Harold; Esvelt Klos, Kathy; Carlson, Craig

Submitted to: G3: Genes, genomics, genetics
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/31/2025
Publication Date: 4/24/2025
Citation: Rahman, A., Sapkota, S., Ajai-Moses, O., Nandety, R., Fiedler, J.D., Mohajeri Naraghi, S., Mcmullen, M.S., Bockelman, H.E., Esvelt Klos, K.L., Carlson, C.H. 2025. A global assembly of landrace oat (Avena sativa L.) accessions is a discovery resource for adaptive variation, association mapping, and trait deployment. G3: Genes, genomics, genetics. https://doi.org/10.1093/g3journal/jkaf093.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/g3journal/jkaf093

Interpretive Summary: This research focuses on improving oats, a cereal crop grown worldwide for food, animal feed, and cosmetics, to adapt to the challenges posed by environmental stress. With increasingly unpredictable weather, new oat varieties are needed that can withstand extreme conditions like drought, heat, and disease. To address this, scientists collected a diverse range of oat varieties from different regions, focusing on their genetic diversity. By studying these genetic differences, they identified traits that allow oats to adapt and thrive in challenging environments. This knowledge can help create new oat varieties that are stronger, more resilient, and better suited to the future impacts of climate change. The research benefits farmers by providing access to new oat varieties that can grow well in changing environments. Consumers will see more stable supplies of nutritious oats, while breeders and researchers gain valuable genetic tools to continue improving the crop. In a broader sense, these efforts contribute to global food security by ensuring oats remain a reliable source of nutrition even as environmental conditions become more volatile.

Technical Abstract: Crop adaptation to environmental shifts will require genetic resources that are different from those currently deployed. The rapid global shift to both warmer temperatures and unpredictable atmospheric events must be considered in developing new breeding populations for local environments. Oats (Avena spp.) are annual grasses that represent a diversity of species and ploidy levels. The most notable, spring oat (A. sativa L.), is a heart-healthy and gluten-free cereal crop that is grown worldwide as a source of food, feed, and cosmetics products. In the past decade, global oat production has been increasingly challenged by environmental stress and its economic value has suffered due to competition with other high-value grain crops. Although genomic resources are growing for spring oat, there is limited information about the landraces that served as founders to modern varieties. To improve knowledge of adaptive genetic variation and phenotypic diversity of spring oat founders, a set of 758 global A. sativa landrace accessions from the USDA-ARS National Small Grains Collection was investigated, herein dubbed the "Oat Landrace Diversity (OLD) Panel". High-depth genotyping-by-sequencing was conducted to assess genetic diversity, perform genome-wide association mapping for environmental variables, and provide insight into whether quantitative trait loci identified in the OLD Panel have been deployed in modern cultivar populations. Finally, we discuss the importance of leveraging genetic variation attributable to environmental adaptation to reinforce plant breeding programs from ecological instability.