Plant Developmental Responses to the Environment

Dear Colleagues,

Owing to their sedentary life style, plants endure, grow and propagate exposed to fluctuating conditions in their surrounding environment. They have to adapt to a series of abiotic and biotic factors, and frequently, the adaptation process affects the developmental course of either vegetative or generative growth. The spectral quality or the intensity of light have a dramatic impact on the cell elongation rate and the extent of stem growth, while water and nutrient availability in the soil influences the expansion of the root system via the induction or suppression of lateral root formation. The formation, distribution and positioning of stomata in leaf epidermis are strongly linked to temperature, while both temperature and photoperiod correlate with flowering triggering at the onset of reproduction. In addition, stress conditions, by affecting a number of developmental pathways, define how cells divide and achieve their cell fate specification. Considering such examples of the effect of environmental conditions in plant growth, this Special Issue is dedicated to cellular and molecular mechanisms engaging development to environmental sensing. Since such developmental decisions arise from hierarchical responses in a broad spatiotemporal scale, we invite articles addressing early mechanisms of signal transduction associated with environmentally-controlled developmental programs, comparative transcriptional and epigenetic programs accompanying such differential developmental pathways, whole proteome surveys of protein complements or post-translational modifications and systems approaches modeling developmental responses to abiotic stresses or plant biotic interactions. Additionally, reports on unique environmental adaptation strategies at any level of plant body organization will be of high interest.  

Dr. Emmanuel Panteris
Dr. George Komis
Dr. Despina Samakovli
Guest Editors

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• tissue patterning
• cell polarity
• cell division orientation
• cell growth orientation
• growth rate
• photomorphogenesis
• stress responses
• thermomorphogenesis
• plastochron index
• embryogenesis
• thigmotropism
• cell fate specification
• environmental adaptation