Résumé
Barley (Hordeum vulgare L.) is a diploid (2n = 14, HH) self-pollinating species that is often used as a model for genetic and physiological studies and shows a wide range of adaptations to various habitats. Primitive land-races and the wild progenitor of barley (H. spontaneum) exhibit a wide range of variation in physiology, morphology, and genetics, which can be used to improve cultivated barley (Nevo, 1992; Forster et al., 2000). Abiotic stresses such as drought can significantly reduce crop yields and restrict the latitudes and soils on which commercially important species can be cultivated (Blum, 1985). Identifying and understanding mechanisms of drought tolerance is crucial to the development of new, tolerant commercial cultivars. Thus, the responses of plants to various stresses have for decades been the focus of physiological studies (Levitt, 1980) and of classical and molecular genetics studies (e.g., Kleinhofs et al., 1993; Hayes et al., 1993; Forster et al., 2000).