Matthew N. Nelson

• PhD in Plant Genetics
• Team Leader at Agriculture and Food, The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation

Lupin crops provide nutritious seeds as an excellent source of dietary protein. However, extensive genomic resources are needed for the adaptation of lupin crops, particularly to improve their nutritional value and facilitate their adaptation to harsh environments caused by the changing climate. Such resources can be derived from crop wild relative...

In Ethiopia livestock feed shortage and soil acidity are serious problems. In recent years sweet lupins (white and blue species) were introduced as multipurpose crops in the country. However, there is no information about their nodulation potential. This study was conducted to evaluate nodulation potential of these sweet lupins and their effect on...

Lupins are high-protein crops that are rapidly gaining interest as hardy alternatives to soybean; however, they accumulate antinutritional alkaloids of the quinolizidine type (QAs). Lupin domestication was enabled by the discovery of genetic loci conferring low QA levels (sweetness), but the precise identity of the underlying genes remains uncertai...

The study was conducted to find new adaptive commercial sweet white lupin (Lupinus albus L.) varieties and evaluate the effect of inoculum on herbage and seed yields of white and blue lupin varieties in Ethiopia for two growing seasons in two locations. For the experiment a factorial arrangement (seven variety * two inoculation) in a randomized com...

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Ongoing climate change has considerably reduced the seasonal window for crop vernalization, concurrently expanding cultivation area into northern latitudes with long-day photoperiod. To address these changes, cool season legume breeders need to understand molecular control of vernalization and photoperiod. A key floral transition gene integrating s...

Over recent years, the demand for livestock products in Ethiopia is increasing; most of this demand is coming from urban centers, especially from Addis Ababa, as the buyers are demanding better quality and more hygienic produce. This has fueled interest in better quality animal feed, mainly from larger-scale commercial livestock producers. With thi...

Alongside the use of fertilizer and chemical control of weeds, pests, and diseases modern breeding has been very successful in generating cultivars that have increased agricultural production several fold in favorable environments. These typically homogeneous cultivars (either homozygous inbreds or hybrids derived from inbred parents) are bred unde...

Good field establishment provides the foundation for a productive crop. Achieving an adequate seedling population ensures the crop forms an effective canopy to capture light and compete with weeds, and an effective root system for uptake of water and nutrients. Canola (oilseed rape; Brassica napus L.), the world's third largest oilseed crop, common...

Stingless bees constitute an important component of tropical ecosystems. The present study reports on the ground nest architecture of the Meliponula stingless bees, impact of agricultural activities on the stingless bee population and traditional use of stingless bee honey in three districts—Wegera, Libo Kemkem and Alepha—of the Amhara Region, Ethi...

We designed and validated a new multiplex PCR marker which discriminates between four insertion/deletion (INDEL) alleles in the 5' regulatory region of a major flowering time gene in Lupinus angustifolius, LanFTc1. The four INDEL alleles were the wild-type allele (ku) in variety Geebung (G), a 1208-bp deletion allele in accession P22660 (P), a 1423...

Key message A plant-specificTrimethylguanosine Synthase1-likehomologue was identified as a candidate gene for theeflmutation in narrow-leafed lupin, which alters phenology by reducing vernalisation requirement. Abstract The vernalisation pathway is a key component of flowering time control in plants from temperate regions but is not well understoo...

White lupin is an old crop with renewed interest due to its seed high protein content and high nutritional value. Despite a long domestication history in the Mediterranean basin, modern breeding efforts have been fairly scarce. Recent sequencing of its genome has provided tools for further description of genetic resources but detailed characterizat...

Low temperature inhibits rapid germination and successful seedling establishment of rapeseed (Brassica napus L.), leading to significant productivity losses. Little is known about the genetic diversity for seed vigor under low-temperature conditions in rapeseed, which motivated our investigation of 13 seed germination- and emergence-related traits...

The transformation of wild plants into domesticated crops usually modifies a common set of characters referred to as ‘domestication syndrome’ traits such as the loss of pod shattering/seed dehiscence, loss of seed dormancy, reduced anti-nutritional compounds and changes in growth habit, phenology, flower and seed colour. Understanding the genetic c...

We present the first genetic map of tedera (Bituminaria bituminosa (L.) C.H. Stirton), a drought-tolerant forage legume from the Canary Islands with useful pharmaceutical properties. It is also the first genetic map for any species in the tribe Psoraleeae (Fabaceae). The map comprises 2042 genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) markers distributed across 1...

New Knowledge provided in this articles collection belonging to the LEGUMES FOR GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY special issue will unlock new physiological insights into legumes biology with the aim to: - Understand complex traits and their functional and mechanistic interrelationship using genetics and translational genomics of legume crops. - Improve proc...

Background: White lupin is an old crop with renewed interest due to its seed high protein content and high nutritional value. Despite a long domestication history in the Mediterranean basin, modern breeding efforts have been fairly scarce. Recent sequencing of its genome has provided tools for further description of genetic resources but detailed c...

The narrow-leafed lupin (Lupinus angustifolius L.) is endemic to coarse-textured neutral to acid sands across the Mediterranean basin, distributed over temperature and rainfall gradients leading to increasing N–S terminal drought. L. angustifolius has a conservative reproductive strategy compared to other Old World species, with relatively early ph...

Flowering time is a highly influential phenological trait for crop adaptation, and in the case of narrow-leafed lupin (Lupinus angustifolius L.), has been one of the most economically significant traits for crop production in both Australia and Europe. Given the importance of this trait, understanding the genetic basis of flowering time has become...

Lupins provide an insightful model for plant domestication with five species domesticated over a wide range of time and geography. The most intensively studied species is narrow-leafed lupin, a twentieth-century domesticate where the addition of each successive domestication trait was documented in the scientific literature. Foundational to the adv...

Yellow lupin (Lupinus luteus L.) is a minor annual legume crop valued for its productivity in highly infertile, acidic soils and for its very high protein seeds. Yellow lupin belongs to the ‘Old World’ group of lupin species and is closely related to narrow-leafed lupin. Yellow lupin shares similar climatic adaptation to narrow-leafed lupin over wh...

White lupin (Lupinus albus L.) is an annual crop cultivated for its protein-rich seeds. It is adapted to poor soils due to the production of cluster roots, which are made of dozens of determinate lateral roots that drastically improve soil exploration and nutrient acquisition (mostly phosphate). Using long-read sequencing technologies, we provide a...

This book on lupin genomics primarily focuses on the narrow-leafed lupin (NLL), and details the genomic resources that have been developed and how they are currently being used to help advance both fundamental and applied research on NLL in areas ranging from its domestication to plant–microbe interactions and syntenic relationships between NLL and...

Background: Yellow lupin (Lupinus luteus L.) is a promising grain legume for productive and sustainable crop rotations. It has the advantages of high tolerance to soil acidity and excellent seed quality, but its current yield potential is poor, especially in low rainfall environments. Key adaptation traits such as phenology and enhanced stress tol...

Green plants (Viridiplantae) include around 450,000–500,000 species1,2 of great diversity and have important roles in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Here, as part of the One Thousand Plant Transcriptomes Initiative, we sequenced the vegetative transcriptomes of 1,124 species that span the diversity of plants in a broad sense (Archaeplastida),...

Green plants (Viridiplantae) include around 450,000–500,000 species1,2 of great diversity and have important roles in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Here, as part of the One Thousand Plant Transcriptomes Initiative, we sequenced the vegetative transcriptomes of 1,124 species that span the diversity of plants in a broad sense (Archaeplastida),...

Green plants (Viridiplantae) include around 450,000–500,000 species1,2 of great diversity and have important roles in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Here, as part of the One Thousand Plant Transcriptomes Initiative, we sequenced the vegetative transcriptomes of 1,124 species that span the diversity of plants in a broad sense (Archaeplastida),...

White lupin (Lupinus albus L.) is a legume that produces seeds recognized for their high protein content and good nutritional value (lowest glycemic index of all grains, high dietary fiber content, and zero gluten or starch). White lupin can form nitrogen-fixing nodules but has lost the ability to form mycorrhizal symbiosis with fungi. Nevertheless...

Abiotic stresses lead to an array of physiological and biochemical changes in crops which affect their growth and development leading to grain yield reductions. Oilseed Brassica species are vulnerable to heat and drought stress, especially in the early reproductive stage. We evaluated the use of several non-destructive phenomic tools to predict hea...

Attribution License (CC BY 4.0). Oilseed Brassica species are vulnerable to heat and drought stress, especially in the early reproductive stage. We evaluated plant imaging of whole plant and flower tissue, leaf stomatal conductance, leaf and bud temperature, photochemical reflectance index, quantum yield of photosynthesis, and leaf gas exchange for...

Background Narrow-leafed lupin is an emerging crop of significance in agriculture, livestock feed and human health food. However, its susceptibility to various diseases is a major obstacle towards increased adoption. Sclerotinia sclerotiorum and Botrytis cinerea – both necrotrophs with broad host-ranges - are reported among the top 10 lupin pathoge...

Using lupin as a break crop and for soil fertility improvement is one of the practices to enhance productivity and improve soil fertility in Ethiopian conditions. However, the use of this practice by smallholder farmers is limited. Therefore, the major objective of this study was to empirically examine factors influencing farmers’ decision to all...

Narrow‐leafed lupin (Lupinus angustifolius L.) cultivation was transformed by 2 dominant vernalization‐insensitive, early flowering time loci known as Ku and Julius (Jul), which allowed expansion into shorter season environments. However, reliance on these loci has limited genetic and phenotypic diversity for environmental adaptation in cultivated...

Key message: This study revealed that the western Mediterranean provided the founder population for domesticated narrow-leafed lupin and that genetic diversity decreased significantly during narrow-leafed lupin domestication. The evolutionary history of plants during domestication profoundly shaped the genome structure and genetic diversity of tod...

Humans have domesticated hundreds of plant and animal species as sources of food, fiber, forage, and tools over the past 12,000 years, with manifold effects on both human society and the genetic structure of the domesticated species. The outcomes of crop domestication were shaped by selection driven by human preferences, cultivation practices, and...

Key message: This first pan-Mediterranean analysis of genetic diversity in wild narrow-leafed lupin revealed strong East-West genetic differentiation of populations, an historic eastward migration, and signatures of genetic adaptation to climatic variables. Most grain crops suffer from a narrow genetic base, which limits their potential for adapti...

Our agricultural system and hence food security is threatened by combination of events, such as increasing population, the impacts of climate change and the need to a more sustainable development. Evolutionary adaptation may help some species to overcome environmental changes through new selection pressures driven by climate change. However, succes...

The domestication of one species by another has occurred several times in evolutionary history, such as the cultivation of fungal species by attine ants, ambrosia beetles and termites. However, the most prolific domesticators are humans, who have tamed hundreds of plant and animal species as sources of food, fibres, forages, and tools over the past...

Key message We report a linkage map for Apios americana and describe synteny with selected warm-season legumes. A translocation event in common bean and soy‑ bean is confrmed against Apios and Vigna species. Abstract Apios (Apios americana; “apios”), a tuberous perennial legume in the Phaseoleae tribe, was widely used as a food by Native Americans....

White lupin (Lupinus albus L.) is a valuable source of seed protein, carbohydrates and oil, but requires genetic improvement to attain its agronomic potential. This study aimed to (i) develop a new high-density consensus linkage map based on new, transcriptome-anchored markers; (ii) map four important agronomic traits, namely, vernalization require...

Production of oilseed rape/canola (Brassica napus) is increasingly threatened by dry conditions while the demand for vegetable oil is increasing. Brassica rapa is a genetically diverse ancestor of B. napus, and is readily crossed with B. napus. Recently, we reported promising levels of drought tolerance in a wild type of B. rapa which could be a so...

Data S1 Predicted gene family expansions and contractions.

Data S2 Summary of sequence‐based genetic markers and their mapping to assembled scaffold sequences of narrow‐leafed lupin cv. Tanjil.

Data S3 An updated genetic map for narrow‐leafed lupin cv. Tanjil.

Data S6 Dot plot comparisons between narrow‐leafed lupin and other legumes.

Figure S1 K‐mer‐based estimation of genome size based on frequency analysis of 17‐mers in paired‐end libraries. A primary coverage peak in 17‐mer frequency was observed at 39× coverage, which corresponded to a frequency of 37 098 706 666 and 44 885 658 200 bases. Using the equation (K‐mer frequency/Peak depth) the K‐mer frequency analysis estimated...

Data S4 CEGMA analysis.

Data S5 CoReFinder analysis.

Data S7 Histograms of synonymous‐site changes between paralogous genes between pairs of sequenced legume genomes.

Data S8 Functional annotations assigned to gene annotations of narrow‐leafed lupin.

Data S9 References for Table 4.

Adaptation of Lupinus angustifolius (narrow-leafed lupin) to cropping in southern Australian and northern Europe was transformed by a dominant mutation (Ku) that removed vernalization requirement for flowering. The Ku mutation is now widely used in lupin breeding to confer early flowering and maturity. We report here the identity of the Ku mutation...

Background The Arabidopsis FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) gene, a member of the phosphatidylethanolamine binding protein (PEBP) family, is a major controller of flowering in response to photoperiod, vernalization and light quality. In legumes, FT evolved into three, functionally diversified clades, FTa, FTb and FTc. A milestone achievement in narrow-leafed...

Lupins are important grain legume crops that form a critical part of sustainable farming systems, reducing fertilizer use and providing disease breaks. It has a basal phylogenetic position relative to other crop and model legumes and a high speciation rate. Narrow-leafed lupin (NLL; Lupinus angustifolius L.) is gaining popularity as a health food,...