What plant roots know?

Publication date: Available online 29 April 2019Source: Seminars in Cell & Developmental BiologyAuthor(s): Ariel NovoplanskyAbstractDespite their paramount role in plant life, the study of roots has been largely neglected until recently. Here, I shortly describe a few newly-discovered abilities of plants to undergo adaptive changes and execute developmental decisions based on roots’ perception of non-resource information pertaining to imminent challenges and opportunities. Seemingly simple in their morphology and architecture and lacking central information-processing centres, roots are able to sense and integrate complex cues and signals over time and space that allow plants to perform elaborate behaviours analogous, some claim even homologous, to those of intelligent animals. Although our knowledge of root behaviour is rapidly expanding, further understanding of its underlying mechanisms is largely preliminary, calling for detailed investigation of the involved cues, signals and information processing controls, as well as their implications for plant development, growth and reproduction under realistic ecological and agricultural settings.Graphical abstractFlowering acceleration by root cueing. Brassica rapa plants were grown under short-day conditions and treated with leachates from plants grown under either inductive long-day (LD) or non-inductive short-day (SD) conditions. Target plants treated with leachates from LD-grown plants (left) flowered earlier and increased t...
Source: Seminars in Cell and Developmental Biology - Category: Cytology Source Type: research