Role of Model Plant Species

The study of plant genomics today in crop species that provide food, fibre, feed and energy is deeply rooted in earlier studies on model species. Model species are often diploid, with few chromosomes, small genomes and can be manipulated via plant transformation. Some model species include Arabidopsis , sorghum, rice and Brachypodium which represent well, both dicotyledon and monocotyledon plants species as well as different plant development and flowering structures. The genomes of the model species share reasonably good synteny and orthology with crop species which facilitates the discovery of genes and association of genes with phenotypes.