Using Genomics to Exploit Grain Legume Biodiversity in Crop Improvement

Following a brief introduction on the phylogeny, taxonomy, production, uses, diseases, pests, environmental stress and variation in genomes of grain legumes, this review focuses on the available genetic resources of key legume crops (tropical and temperate legumes, and model species related to grain legumes); management and utilization of legume genetic resources; impact of genetic resources in conventional legume breeding (germplasm distribution, domesticated germplasm and breeding gains, wild germplasm, conventional manipulation of genetic resources); enhanced molecular strategies for manipulating novel genetic variation for legume breeding (interspecific hybridization, linkage mapping and QTL detection, linkage disequilibrium and association mapping, dissection and manipulation of legume physiology); advanced applications in legume molecular breeding (comparative genomics and allele mining, functional genomics and gene discovery, new technologies for marker-assisted selection, and molecular breeding in legumes