Non-technical Description The Missouri Transect: Climate, Plants and Community addresses a fundamental issue in sustainability and resilience - how plants and crops adapt to increased climate variability. The research and education activities in the project exploit a combination of high-resolution climate data, high-throughput genomics and phenomics techniques, and stakeholder engagement. The project builds upon the jurisdiction?s strengths in biotechnology and regional climate modeling.
A Science Education and Outreach Team will integrate research and education by developing learning tools and opportunities that inform Missouri citizens about climate change and its predicted effects on agriculture and the environment. Public education programs will provide a better understanding of how a changing environment affects plants and society. Educational programs will share information about how scientists study climate change and how they research new plant drought/stress tolerance traits. In addition, the Missouri Transect will incorporate a diverse population of individuals and organizations throughout the project with a special emphasis on increasing the proficiency and interest of underrepresented groups and women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
The project seeks to associate plant genotypes and phenotypes with environmental variability, with the end goal of improved crop production. The research in this proposal seeks to couple regional and microclimate models to specific phenotype and genotype investigations in order to understand how plants adapt to stresses associated with climate change. A Climate Team will develop models for the Hinkson Creek Watershed to predict trends in precipitation and temperature that impact plant ecosystems. A Plant Team will use high-throughput phenomics technologies to determine how plant genotypes, phenotypes and productivity correlate with changes in the environment. The Community Team will investigate how Missouri communities manage resilience with increased frequency of drought, flooding, and heat waves. The expected outcomes include enhanced knowledge about adaptation and resilience, training and technology development around plant responses to drought, seasonal-range climate forecasts, computational analysis and modeling of metascale environmental sensing data, high-resolution plant phenotyping, and an improved understanding of how stakeholders make decisions in response to increased climate variability.
