Desert ecosystem is far more harsh

Desert ecosystem is far more harsh than most agriculturalecosystems, where major crop species are grown.In the desert, the plant species diversity is low and newevidence has shown that speciation in such environmentsis extensively driven by recent climate and habitatchanges [7,8]. Plants survived in the desert regions mustcope with challenging environmental factors, such as extremesof temperature, high evaporation, low and erraticprecipitation, salinity, solar radiation, and high light intensity[9,10]. The desert plants therefore fascinate scientistswith their unique adaptation and survival strategies [11].Recently, next-generation sequencing (NGS; i.e. genomicsand transcriptomics) was used to explore the possible adaptationmechanism of some desert plants, i.e. euphratica[12,13], Rhazya stricta [10], Reaumuria soongorica [14],and Ammopiptanthus mongolicus [15,16]. A feature ofthese plants is extensive adaptation, and indeed suchstudies improve our understanding of how they adaptto various kinds of stress factors. However, the intrinsicadaptation and survival strategies throughout the differentstages of the life cycle of these desert species do notlend themselves easy to transfer to our major crop plants.Domestication of a potential crop species from desert environments,which is able to buffer the ongoing climatechange, promises to be an effective strategy to keep foodsecurity.