Award details

Ecological genetics of ryegrass and white clover

Reference	BBS/E/G/00003473
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Dr Nigel Sackville-Hamilton
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	Inst of Grassland and Environmental Res
Department	Inst of Grassland and Environmental Res Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	202,040
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/04/1997
End date	31/03/1999
Duration	24 months

Abstract

A pasture is a spatially and temporally heterogeneous environment, occupied by a patchy and dynamic mixture of species, each of which is genetically diverse. The aim of this project is two fold: (1) to develop improved methods of analysing competition and (2) to analyse the spatial and temporal genetic structure of populations in old pastures. Populations of white clover in old fields are known to be genetically highly diverse and to be subdivided on a fine scale into small subpopulations each adapted to its own patch of the field. The hypothesis has been formed that old white clover populations exhibit sisyphean fitness in which most genotypes are a relict of past selection pressures ("stresses") and subpopulations become dominated by the genotype adapted to the current stress. This hypothesis is being tested, utilizing an experiment set up under PU80, by taking repeated samples of all white clover plants in a set of quadrats, determining their genotypic composition and analysing their adaptedeness. This work is of high strategic importance to future development of diverse and environmentally benign but profitable grassland farming: contrast to many chaos-generating ecological interactions, this kind of interaction can increase stability of yield and flexibility of adaptation to stress.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Agri-food (AF)
Research Topics	X – not assigned to a current Research Topic
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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