The Rye Genome

This book celebrates the dawn of the rye genomics era with concise, comprehensive, and accessible reviews on the current state of rye genomic research, written by experts in the field for students, researchers and growers. 

To most, rye is the key ingredient in a flavoursome bread or their favourite American whisky. To a farmer, rye is the remarkable grain that tolerates the harshest winters and the most unforgiving soils, befitting its legacy as the life-giving seed that fed the ancient civilisations of northern Eurasia.

Since the mid-1900s, scientists have employed genetic approaches to better understand and utilize rye, but only since the technological advances of the mid-2010s has the possibility of addressing questions using rye genome assemblies become a reality. Alongside the secret of its unique survival abilities, rye genomics has accelerated research on a host of intriguing topics such as the complex history of rye’s domestication by humans, the nature of genes that switch fertility on and off, the function and origin of accessory chromosomes, and the evolution of selfish DNA.

M. Timothy Rabanus-Wallace’s primary research interests are in evolutionary processes, genomics, and bioinformatics. He completed his PhD at the University of Adelaide in 2017, during which he analysed ancient plant DNA and stable isotope data to reconstruct ecological shifts at the end of the last glacial period. He subsequent joined the Genomics of Genetic Resources research group led by Nils Stein at IPK Gatersleben, as a postdoctoral researcher and staff scientist. In this capacity he works on the exploitation of genetic material from genebanks, and develops assembly and analysis approaches for crop genomes, most prominently rye.

The research focus of Nils Stein is on genome dynamics and evolution, structural and comparative genome analysis of the small grain cereals barley, wheat and rye―with a leading role in the sequencing of all three crop genomes. Recent activities emphasize on the analysis of the pan-genome of barley and wheat and on the systematic cataloging of global barley diversity in ex situ diversity collections as a proxy for barley systems genomics and genomics based plant breeding. After graduating in Biology (1993, Kaiserslautern University, Germany), PhD in Genetics (1997, Hohenheim University, Germany) and postdoc research (Zurich University, Switzerland), Nils Stein joined IPK Gatersleben in 2001 to become a group leader in 2007. Since 2018, after declining other offers, he is a joint professor (W3) of Plant Genetic Resources between Georg-August-University Göttingen and IPK Gatersleben.