PI: Kenneth M. Olsen (Washington University St. Louis) Co-PIs: Ana Caicedo (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), Yulin Jia (University of Arkansas)
Red rice is a weedy form of cultivated rice (Oryza sativa L.) that competes aggressively with the crop in the southern U.S., reducing yields and contaminating harvests with its small, dark grain. Previous assessments of genetic diversity suggest that some red rice strains are closely related to wild Asian Oryza species, others resemble Asian domesticated rice, and others show close genetic similarity to U.S. crop varieties. This project examines DNA sequence diversity and linkage disequilibrium in genomic regions underlying several weed-associated traits in U.S. red rice and in randomly selected loci distributed across the genome. DNA sequence data generated by the project will be used to compare alternative hypotheses on the roles of foreign weed introduction, hybridization, and selection in shaping the red rice genome. These data will be important in determining the origin(s) of the weed and the genetic mechanisms by which it adapts to U.S. agricultural fields. These insights can provide information towards devising effective weed control strategies.
Access to project outcomes: DNA sequence data generated from the project will be available through Genbank (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) and Gramene (www.gramene.org/), as well as a project website accessible via http://biology4.wustl.edu/olsen/.
