Potential role of underutilised food legumes in facing the challenge of climate change in West Africa

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Potential role of underutilised food legumes in facing the
challenge of climate change in West Africa
Michael T. Abberton, Rajneesh Paliwal, Oyatomi Olaniyi, Ufuoma
Akjopotor, Ukoabasi Ekanem, Tope Adeboyega, Ben Faloye, Kafilat Odesola
Genetic Resources Centre (GRC)
IITA, Ibadan, Nigeria
IARSAF 2018

A member of CGIAR consortium www.iita.org
Predicted annual rainfall change under climate change for 2050

Soil degradation
More than 40%
of West Africa
soils are under
moderate to
very high
degradation

Farming systems
John Dixon Farming
system (FAO)

Approaches to climate change adaptation
• Conservation and use of genetic resources
• Breeding
• Improved agricultural practices
• Integrated pest management

• Intercropping systems
• Natural resource management
• Agrobiodiversity and development of ‘orphan species’

 Bambara groundnut (BG) is an orphan legume crop grown
mainly in subsistence and small-scale agriculture system in
sub-Saharan Africa for its nutritious seeds and its tolerance
to drought and poor soils
 Genetic Resources Centre (GRC) is holding an international
collection of BG landraces around 2,085 accessions at IITA
IITA genebank conservation of orphan legume crops

African yambean
• African yam bean (AYB) Sphenostylis
stenocarpa is a neglected and
underutilised crop native to tropical
west and central Africa
• It thrives on deep, loose sandy and
loamy soils with good organic content
and good drainage.
• It grows better in regions where annual
rainfall ranges between 800 and 1400
mm.

African yambean
• AYB is one of the
important tuberous legumes
• It produces edible bean
seeds and tubers that look
like elongated sweet potato.
•Utilisation of underutilised
crops such as AYB could
buffer nutritional,
environmental and financial
vulnerability of the poor.

© Copyright CFF - 2015
Bambara groundnut
• Bambara groundnut (Vigna
subterranea (L.) Verdc.)
originated in West Africa.
• It is widely distributed throughout
the semi-arid zone of sub-Saharan
Africa (SSA).
• Bambara yields well under
conditions which are too arid for
groundnut (Arachis hypogea),
maize (Zea mays L.) and even
sorghum (Sorghum bicolar).

Bambara groundnut

0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
Origin and distribution of Bambara groundnut in IITA Collection

• Morphological and agronomic traits
• Nitrogen fixation
• Drought tolerance
• Protein Content
• Cooking time
• Diversity analysis

Measurement of root and shoot biomass, and nodule number of African
yam bean grown under screenhouse conditions and harvested 27 days
after inoculation with various strains of rhizobia isolated from each
accession
Isolates
Plant Biomass
Shoot Dry
weight (g)
Root Dry
weight (g)
Nodule
Number
TSs77 0.52 0.09 53
TSs9 0.45 0.13 40
TSs82 0.47 0.1 33
TSs76 0.48 0.17 28
TSs16 0.39 0.09 23
TSs10
4
0.58 0.19 16
TSs30 0.39 0.14 11
TSs68 0.6 0.18 9
TSs10
9
0.31 0.06 9
TSs3 0.14 0.13 8
TSs33 0.34 0.11 8
TSs4 0.34 0.09 3
TSs66 0.45 0.14 2

Genetic diversity and nitrogen fixation in African yam bean-
Sphenostylis stenocarpa (Hochst Ex. A. Rich) Harms

Plate 5: Recovery of plants from the effects of water stress two
weeks after resumption of irrigation. 0 for completely wilted
plant and no regrowth, 0.5 for new growth from basal meristem,
and 1 for new growth from apical meristem.

Protein content and cooking time
ACC NAME ORIGIN REGION COOKING TIME PROTEIN CONTENT
TVSu-2 Nigeria West Africa 97 19.71
TVSu-115 Cote d'ivoire West Africa 95 20.95
TVSu-188 Benin West Africa 97 17.95
TVSu-203 Benin West Africa 93 25.05
TVSu-252 Gambia West Africa 101 23.56
TVSu-395 Cameroon Central Africa 66 23.13

• Figure 1: A s Relationship between cooking time and protein content of Bambara groundnut.
y = -0.0224x + 22.239
R² = 0.026
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Proteincontent(%)
Cooking time (Min)

Diversity analysis of Bambara groundnut
accessions

Bambara Groundnut population used for DArTSeq SNP
 92 lines of 90 Bambara groundnut (BG) accessions from 12 African countries used with two technical DNA
replication (TVsu86 & TVsu1) for diversity study
 Out of 12 African countries, majority of BG germplasm belong to Nigeria (17 accessions) followed by Zambia
(15 accessions), and Cameroon(14 accessions).
S. No
BG Country
Group
Country
Code Lines used Africa Region
1
Central African
Republic CAR 7
Central-Africa (22 accessions)
2 Cameroon CM 14
3 Congo CO 1
4 Burundi BU 1 East-Africa (one accession)
5 Botswana BW 1
South-Africa (27 accessions)6 Zambia ZA 15
7 Zimbabwe ZM 11
8 Burkina Faso BF 9 (TVsu86 used as technical DNA replicate)
West-Africa (40 accessions)
9 Benin BE 7
10 Cote d'Ivoire CI 3
11 Gambia GA 4
12 Nigeria NG 17 (TVsu1 used as technical DNA replicate)

Bambara Groundnut (BG) DArTseq SNP
 Total SNP = 15918 from 90 BG
accessions with two technical DNA
replication
 Total SNPs aligned on 11 Chromosomes
of closely related legume Mung bean
genome (Reference_Mung_bean_V6) =
3862
 Total SNP aligned on scaffold of genome
Mung_bean_V6 = 572
 Total Unaligned SNP = 12062
 Proportion of missing data = 13.5%;
Proportion Heterozygous = 7.78%

SNP Markers Quality
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
9000
< 0.50 0.50 - 0.79 0.80 - 0.90 0.90 - 0.95 0.95 - 1.0
SNPs
Call Rate of SNP Markers
SNP Call Rates
0
2000
4000
6000
8000
10000
12000
14000
< 0.50 0.50 - 0.70 0.71 - 0.80 0.81 - 90 0.91 - 0.95 0.95 - 1.0
SNPs
Reproducibility of SNP Markers
SNP Reproducibility

Polymorphic Information Content (PIC ) and Heterozygosity
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
0 0.021 - 0.05 0.05 - 0.10 0.10 -
0.20
0.20 - 0.30 0.30 - 0.50
SNPs
PIC Value of SNP Markers
PIC in Bambara Groundnut

Filtering SNP Dataset
 Total 15918 SNP dataset was
filtered based on minor allele
frequency (maf) 0.01, MinCount
60 (allele site minimum present
in 60 accessions of total 92
accessions) and removed
monomorphic SNP markers
 12517 SNP were maintained
after filtering and used for
further molecular analysis
 Proportion of missing data and
heterozygous in filtered dataset
were 9.2 %, 9.1% respectively

Genetic Diversity
 90 BG accessions were
grouped in 5 clusters which
were generally correspond to
their origin
 South African BG lines were
grouped in single cluster,
while both Central and West
African BG lines grouped in
two clusters
 West Africa germplasm
showed highest diversity
followed by Central African
germplasm than South
African BG material
 East African line TVsu2018
were very close with South
African population than
Central Africa or West Africa
Central Africa (Central African Republic, Cameroon and Congo): Red
Color
East Africa (Burundi): Black Color
South Africa (Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe): Green Color
West Africa (Burkina Faso, Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia and Nigeria): Blue
color
Neighbor joining cladogram analysis of BG population

Population Structure Analysis
 Principal component (PC) analysis and multidimensional
scaling of the BG population dataset revealed K = 3 groups
for BG population which is also grouped correspondence
to their origin
 First three PCs contributes 20.31%, 8.50 and 4.56
respectively to total variation explained by all 90 PCs
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
1 2 3 4 5
PCValues
Principal Components
Variation explained by first five principal components
Cumulative proportion
Proportion of Total
Contribution of variation by first 5 PCs

Concluding comments
• Important potential role for orphan crops but this needs to be
verified and constraints overcome
• Options for the farmer
• Diversity- Resilience?
• Dietary diversity?
• Establishing information necessary for pre breeding and breeding
• Need a whole value chain approach

Acknowledgements
• Global Crop Diversity Trust
• CGIAR donors
• Crops for the Future Research Centre
• International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and
Agriculture

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