Abstract
Breeding the oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) for climate change requires multidisciplinary and collaborative research by nature: indeed – besides genetics and structural and functional genomics – almost all disciplines related to life sciences are involved. Research work also relies on the identification of genetic variation in the strategies of response to stress developed by the plant: this implies the exploration of resources provided by natural variation, germplasm collections, selected genitors from breeding programs together with material of interest collected from smallholders. The phenotyping of selected plant material under biotic/abiotic stress will involve new methods for high-throughput phenotyping and genomic approaches will be followed for the identification of genes underlying the variation of traits which will be used as selection targets. Also, improvements in understanding how climate change may influence chemical and physical processes in soils, how this may affect nutrient availability, and how the plant responds to changed availability of nutrients will also influence oil palm breeding programs. Molecular approaches and tools have great potential to optimize patterns of plant breeding, especially for perennial species. In recent years, there has been an exponential increase in molecular resources and methods aimed at identifying polymorphisms which control the traits of interest and exploring the mechanisms linking these polymorphisms to phenotypes. With genomic resources becoming increasingly available for the oil palm (sequencing, resequencing and chips development) the exploration of the genetic basis of complex traits such as oil yield or resistance to disease is now possible. Consequently the availability and sharing of such a large amount of data is currently reshaping most of oil palm breeding strategies.
Highlights
The large-scale cultivation of the oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) has been able to drastically transform tropical landscapes and livelihoods in the recent decades (Rival and Levang, 2014)
Breeding for climate change requires by nature multidisciplinary actions (Hospes et al, 2017): almost all disciplines related to life sciences are involved, besides genetics and structural and functional genomics, namely: physiology, eco-physiology, biochemistry, developmental and cellular biology, agronomy, plant pathology, entomology, architectural modelling and data integration, etc
As for many other crops, climate change will impact the conditions of oil palm cultivation through a range of expected abiotic and biotic stresses
Summary
The large-scale cultivation of the oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) has been able to drastically transform tropical landscapes and livelihoods in the recent decades (Rival and Levang, 2014) This outstanding crop produces very high oil yields and it shows an amazing agronomic plasticity: these are valuable assets in a context of climate change and ecological intensification. The pivotal question is to stabilize or – even better – increase palm oil production under constraints brought by climate change Such constraints will impact the environment of the current cultivated areas and/or induce the extension of plantations to new areas. It will challenge the capacity for adaptation of various oil palm cropping systems (industrial estates and smallholders). Agricultural practices will have a role to play as traditional cover crop such as Mucuna brachiata might not be the most appropriate one under severe drought conditions (Ollivier J., pers. com.)
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