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Plants growing at high densities can detect competitors through changes in the composition of light reflected by neighbours. In response to this far-red-enriched light, plants elicit adaptive shade avoidance responses for light capture, but these need to be balanced against other input signals, such as nutrient availability. Here, we investigated how Arabidopsis integrates shade and nitrate signalling. We unveiled that nitrate modulates shade avoidance via a previously unknown shade response pathway that involves root-derived trans-zeatin (tZ) signal and the BEE1 transcription factor as an integrator of light and cytokinin signalling. Under nitrate-sufficient conditions, tZ promotes hypocotyl elongation specifically in the presence of supplemental far-red light. This occurs via PIF transcription factors-dependent inhibition of type-A ARRs cytokinin response inhibitors. Our data thus reveal how plants co-regulate responses to shade cues with root-derived information about nutrient availability, and how they restrict responses to this information to specific light conditions in the shoot., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Plants use light as a resource and signal. Photons within the 400-700 nm waveband are considered photosynthetically active. Far-red photons (FR, 700-800 nm) are used by plants to detect nearby vegetation and elicit the shade avoidance syndrome. In addition, FR photons have also been shown to contribute to photosynthesis, but knowledge about these dual effects remains scarce. Here, we study shoot-architectural and photosynthetic responses to supplemental FR light during the photoperiod in several rice varieties. We observed that FR enrichment only mildly affected the rice transcriptome and shoot architecture as compared to established model species, whereas leaf formation, tillering and biomass accumulation were clearly promoted. Consistent with this growth promotion, we found that CO 2 -fixation in supplemental FR was strongly enhanced, especially in plants acclimated to FR-enriched conditions as compared to control conditions. This growth promotion dominates the effects of FR photons on shoot development and architecture. When substituting FR enrichment with an end-of-day FR pulse, this prevented photosynthesis-promoting effects and elicited shade avoidance responses. We conclude that FR photons can have a dual role, where effects depend on the environmental context: in addition to being an environmental signal, they are also a potent source of harvestable energy., (© 2024 The Authors. Plant, Cell & Environment published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

The hormone auxin regulates growth largely by affecting gene expression. By studying Arabidopsis ( Arabidopsis thaliana ) mutants deficient in AUXIN RESPONSE FACTORS (ARFs), we have identified three ARF proteins that are required for auxin-responsive hypocotyl elongation. Plants deficient in these factors have reduced responses to environmental conditions that increase auxin levels, including far-red-enriched light and high temperature. Despite having decreased auxin responses, the ARF-deficient plants responded to brassinosteroid and gibberellin, indicating that different hormones can act partially independently. Aux/IAA proteins, encoded by IAA genes, interact with ARF proteins to repress auxin response. Silencing expression of multiple IAA genes increased hypocotyl elongation, suggesting that Aux/IAA proteins modulate ARF activity in hypocotyls in a potential negative feedback loop., (© 2018 American Society of Plant Biologists. All rights reserved.)

Vegetation stands have a heterogeneous distribution of light quality, including the red/far-red light ratio (R/FR) that informs plants about proximity of neighbors. Adequate responses to changes in R/FR are important for competitive success. How the detection and response to R/FR are spatially linked and how this spatial coordination between detection and response affects plant performance remains unresolved. We show in Arabidopsis thaliana and Brassica nigra that localized FR enrichment at the lamina tip induces upward leaf movement (hyponasty) from the petiole base. Using a combination of organ-level transcriptome analysis, molecular reporters, and physiology, we show that PIF-dependent spatial auxin dynamics are key to this remote response to localized FR enrichment. Using computational 3D modeling, we show that remote signaling of R/FR for hyponasty has an adaptive advantage over local signaling in the petiole, because it optimizes the timing of leaf movement in response to neighbors and prevents hyponasty caused by self-shading., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Plants have evolved shoot elongation mechanisms to escape from diverse environmental stresses such as flooding and vegetative shade. The apparent similarity in growth responses suggests a possible convergence of the signaling pathways. Shoot elongation is mediated by passive ethylene accumulating to high concentrations in flooded plant organs and by changes in light quality and quantity under vegetation shade. Here, we study hypocotyl elongation as a proxy for shoot elongation and delineate Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) hypocotyl length kinetics in response to ethylene and shade. Based on these kinetics, we further investigated ethylene- and shade-induced genome-wide gene expression changes in hypocotyls and cotyledons separately. Both treatments induced a more extensive transcriptome reconfiguration in the hypocotyls compared with the cotyledons. Bioinformatics analyses suggested contrasting regulation of growth promotion- and photosynthesis-related genes. These analyses also suggested an induction of auxin, brassinosteroid, and gibberellin signatures and the involvement of several candidate regulators in the elongating hypocotyls. Pharmacological and mutant analyses confirmed the functional involvement of several of these candidate genes and physiological control points in regulating stress-escape responses to different environmental stimuli. We discuss how these signaling networks might be integrated and conclude that plants, when facing different stresses, utilize a conserved set of transcriptionally regulated genes to modulate and fine-tune growth., (© 2016 American Society of Plant Biologists. All Rights Reserved.)

Upward leaf movement (hyponastic growth) is frequently observed in response to changing environmental conditions and can be induced by the phytohormone ethylene. Hyponasty results from differential growth (i.e. enhanced cell elongation at the proximal abaxial side of the petiole relative to the adaxial side). Here, we characterize Enhanced Hyponasty-d, an activation-tagged Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) line with exaggerated hyponasty. This phenotype is associated with overexpression of the mitotic cyclin CYCLINA2;1 (CYCA2;1), which hints at a role for cell divisions in regulating hyponasty. Indeed, mathematical analysis suggested that the observed changes in abaxial cell elongation rates during ethylene treatment should result in a larger hyponastic amplitude than observed, unless a decrease in cell proliferation rate at the proximal abaxial side of the petiole relative to the adaxial side was implemented. Our model predicts that when this differential proliferation mechanism is disrupted by either ectopic overexpression or mutation of CYCA2;1, the hyponastic growth response becomes exaggerated. This is in accordance with experimental observations on CYCA2;1 overexpression lines and cyca2;1 knockouts. We therefore propose a bipartite mechanism controlling leaf movement: ethylene induces longitudinal cell expansion in the abaxial petiole epidermis to induce hyponasty and simultaneously affects its amplitude by controlling cell proliferation through CYCA2;1. Further corroborating the model, we found that ethylene treatment results in transcriptional down-regulation of A2-type CYCLINs and propose that this, and possibly other regulatory mechanisms affecting CYCA2;1, may contribute to this attenuation of hyponastic growth., (© 2015 American Society of Plant Biologists. All Rights Reserved.)

Global climate change has increased flooding events, which affect both natural vegetation dynamics and crop productivity. The flooded environment is lethal for most plant species because it restricts gas exchange and induces an energy and carbon crisis. Flooding survival strategies have been studied in Oryza sativa, a cultivated monocot. However, our understanding of plant adaptation to natural flood-prone environments remains scant, even though wild plants represent a valuable resource of tolerance mechanisms that could be used to generate stress-tolerant crops. Here we identify mechanisms that mediate the distinct flooding survival strategies of two related wild dicot species: Rumex palustris and Rumex acetosa. Whole transcriptome sequencing and metabolite profiling reveal flooding-induced metabolic reprogramming specific to R. acetosa. By contrast, R. palustris uses the early flooding signal ethylene to increase survival by regulating shade avoidance and photomorphogenesis genes to outgrow submergence and by priming submerged plants for future low oxygen stress. These results provide molecular resolution of flooding survival strategies of two species occupying distinct hydrological niches. Learning how these contrasting flood adaptive strategies evolved in nature will be instrumental for the development of stress-tolerant crop varieties that deliver enhanced yields in a changing climate.

Colonization of the land by multicellular green plants was a fundamental step in the evolution of life on earth. Land plants evolved from fresh-water aquatic algae, and the transition to a terrestrial environment required the acquisition of developmental plasticity appropriate to the conditions of water availability, ranging from drought to flood. Here we show that extant bryophytes exhibit submergence-induced developmental plasticity, suggesting that submergence responses evolved relatively early in the evolution of land plants. We also show that a major component of the bryophyte submergence response is controlled by the phytohormone ethylene, using a perception mechanism that has subsequently been conserved throughout the evolution of land plants. Thus a plant environmental response mechanism with major ecological and agricultural importance probably had its origins in the very earliest stages of the colonization of the land., (© 2012 The Authors. The Plant Journal © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.)