Unveiling pepper immunity’s robustness to temperature shifts: insights for empowering future crops

Abstract

Boosting plant immunity is an effective alternative to pesticides. However, environmental variations, accentuated by climate change, can compromise immunity. The robustness of a trait corresponds to the absence (or low level) of variation in that trait in the face of an environmental change. Here, we examined two types of robustness, robustness of immunity mean and robustness of immunity variation, and proposed nine quantitative robustness estimators. We characterized the immunity of a set of accessions representative of the natural diversity of pepper (Capsicum annuum L.), to two major pathogens: the oomycete Phytophthora capsici Leon. and potato virus Y. For each pathogen, we measured the immunity of accessions in two contrasting environments in terms of temperature. For each type of robustness and each pathogen, the impact of temperature change on immunity varied between accessions. The robustness estimators proved to be complementary and differed in terms of heritability and ability to discriminate accessions. A positive and significant correlation was observed between immunity and robustness. There was no significant relationship between the robustness of immunity to the two pathogens, but some accessions showed high immunity and robustness against both pathogens. These results justify the need to consider both immunity and robustness to environmental variations in order to select varieties adapted to current and future climate conditions. Phenotypic robustness should also be considered when assessing the “value of sustainable cultivation and use” of future plant varieties, particularly during the application process for protection rights granted from the European Community Plant Variety Office.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the INRAE GAFL CRB-Lég (https://www6.paca.inrae.fr/gafl_eng/Vegetable-Germplasm-Centre) for maintaining the pepper germplasm collection and the INRAE experimental facilities of the research units GAFL (A2M, https://eng-a2m.paca.hub.inrae.fr) and Pathologie Végétale (IEPV, https://doi.org/10.15454/8DGF-QF70) for ensuring the production and maintenance of the plants and plant growth facilities. We acknowledge the members of INRAE GAFL and Pathologie Végétale units, Sarah De Colle—Guihéneux, Louis McLeod, Bernard Caromel, Alexandre Bachellez, Marielle Antchagno, Emmanuel Szadkowski, Catherine Rys, Loup Rimbaud, Grégory Girardot, Alexandra Schoeny, Karine Berthier, Jonathan Gaudin, Eric Verdin, Patrick Gognalons, Clara Torres-Barceló, and Cécile Desbiez, for their help during the experimental work and valuable discussions regarding the experimental setup and results. William Billaud received a scholarship from the Structure Fédérative de Recherche (SFR) “Développement des produits végétaux naturels, qualité et environnement” (TERSYS) in Avignon, France, and from INRAE Plant Biology and Breeding division. The ROBUSPIM research project was supported by the Plant Biology and Breeding division (BAP) and the Plant Health and Environment division (SPE) of INRAE. This work was also partly supported by the Horizon Europe Program, project “Promoting Plant Genetic Resource Community for Europe” (PRO-GRACE project number no. 101094738).

Author contributions

V.L., B.M., and J.H. contributed to the conception of the study. All authors contributed to data collection. Statistical analyses were performed by W.B. under the supervision of V.L., B.M., and L.T. WB drafted the manuscript with the help of V.L., B.M., and J.H. V.L., B.M., and J.H. revised the draft manuscript. All authors approved the final manuscript.

3 Data availability

The dataset and code generated for this study are accessible at https://doi.org/10.57745/3MN2BU [49].

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

Supplementary Data

Supplementary data is available at Horticulture Research online.

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