Objective Application of chemical pesticides in agriculture represents one of the major costs of agricultural production and is a key source of environmental pollution, destruction of wildlife and introduction of known carcinogens into the human food chain. The current need for novel methods of pest control coincides with unprecedented advances in genomic analyses of crop plants. The two-spotted spider mite (Tetranychus urticae) is one of the major pests in agriculture. Our group is generating the whole genome sequences of this pest herbivore, and will provide a unique resource for studies of plant-herbivore interactions at the whole genome level. I propose to: 1) Analyze natural variation of resistance to spider mites in Arabidopsis and grapevines; 2) Map major QTLs for spider mite resistance in Arabidopsis and grapevines; 3) Identify genes whose expression correlates with plant resistance through the analysis of whole genome transcription profiles of Arabidopsis and grapevines plants that are either resistant or sensitive to spider mites; 4) Create and characterize Arabidopsis and grapevine strains collected from the Balkans-Montenegro, a divergent and unexploited European refugia. The goal of this study is to characterize the plant response to spider mite feeding, and to identify QTLs and genes associated with plant resistance to this pest. These can be used in marker-assisted crop breeding toward development of spider mite resistant crops. The proposed project will be implemented at the Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (CNB), Madrid, Spain, and at The Department of Biotechnology, Podgorica, Montenegro. Fields of science agricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagricultureagronomyplant protectionnatural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesenvironmental sciencespollutionagricultural sciencesagriculture, forestry, and fisheriesagricultureagronomyplant breedingnatural sciencesbiological sciencesgeneticsgenomes Keywords Crop protection Environmental genomics Genetic mapping Genetic selection Pesticides Programme(s) FP7-PEOPLE - Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013) Topic(s) FP7-PEOPLE-IIF-2008 - Marie Curie Action: "International Incoming Fellowships" Call for proposal FP7-PEOPLE-IIF-2008 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MC-IIF - International Incoming Fellowships (IIF) Coordinator AGENCIA ESTATAL CONSEJO SUPERIOR DE INVESTIGACIONES CIENTIFICAS EU contribution € 219 298,04 Address CALLE SERRANO 117 28006 Madrid Spain See on map Region Comunidad de Madrid Comunidad de Madrid Madrid Activity type Research Organisations Administrative Contact Carlos Abad-Ruiz (Mr.) Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Total cost No data