Quantitative trait loci associated with drought tolerance in the model legume Medicago truncatula

Water shortage and heterogeneity in precipitation constitute the essential limiting factors for agricultural production in the Mediterranean basin. To understand the complex inheritance of tolerance to drought stress in Medicago truncatula, quantitative trait loci (QTLs) analysis was performed using a set of recombinant inbred lines (RILs) derived from a cross between the susceptible line Jemalong A17 and the tolerant line F83005.5. We conducted two experiments where the RILs and parental lines were grown in 0 mM and 75 mM of mannitol (D-) in tubes and in control and 33% of the field capacity (FC) in pots. In both experiments, line and line by water treatment interaction were significant. QTLs analysis showed that several putative genomic regions are involved in the variation of measured traits under the two water treatments in tubes and pots. A total of 21 QTLs on 8 linkage groups were detected for the measured traits in both experiments, 11 of them were in tubes conditions. Eight of these 11 QTLs were identified in control treatment and three in mannitol. While the number of QTLs identified in tubes under control conditions was more than under mannitol conditions, the highest number of QTLs was detected in water-stressed conditions in pots. The percentage of phenotypic variance explained by a single QTL (R 2) ranges from 11.7 to 26.3% in tubes and from 11.2 to 18.4% in pots depending on the trait, with 6 QTLs in each condition explaining <15% of the phenotypic variance. The number of common QTLs under two water treatments was one for length of stems (LS), number of internodes (NIN) and aerial dry weight (ADW) in tubes, and zero for NIN and one for LS and leaf area (LA) in pots. However, a few overlapping QTLs were found in tubes and pots on linkage groups 5 and 7 for LS and NIN.