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Soil-Plant Signalling Networks and Drought

Background

Soil drying limits plant productivity through an impact on both gas exchange and canopy development. This limitation is a result of the influence of chemical and hydraulic signals which integrate the impact of climatic and edaphic influences on plant growth and functioning. A number of different signals regulate leaf conductance and leaf growth under drought and we are particularly interested to understand the factors which result in modified fluxes to the shoot of abscisic acid (ABA) and of the ethylene precursor ACC (1-aminocyclopropane-carboxylic acid).

We work on factors affecting both the synthesis and degredation of the hormone abscisic acid and its compartmentation in the leaf as a function of pH of different cellular compartments. pH regulation under drought stress is a particular focus of the group and we have recently shown how variation in apoplastic pH in response to a variety of environmental cues will influence the impact of the pH signal on both growth and gas exchange. Recent work shows how the metabolic activity of rhizosphere micro-organisms can impact on long-distance stress signaling in plants.

Publications

  1. Wilkinson, S. and Davies, W.J. (2002) ABA-based chemical signalling: the co-ordination of responses to stress in plants. Plant Cell and Environment 25, 195-210.
  2. Sobeih WY, Dodd IC, Bacon MA, Grierson D, Davies WJ (2004) Long-distance signals regulating stomatal conductance and leaf growth in tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) plants subjected to partial root-zone drying. Journal of Experimental Botany 55, 2353-2363.
  3. Dodd, I.C., and Davies, W.J. (2005) Hormones and the Regulation of Water Balance. In: Plant Hormones: Biosynthesis, Signal Transduction, P.J. Davies ed. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands. 493-512.
  4. Davies WJ, Kudoyarova G, Hartung W (2005) Long-distance ABA signalling and its relation to other signaling pathways in the detection of soil drying and the mediation of the plant's response to drought Journal of Plant Growth Regulation 24, 285-295.
  5. Jia,. W. and Davies, W.J. (2007) Modification of leaf apoplastic pH in relation to stomatal sensitivity to root sourced ABA signals. Plant Physiology 143, 68-77.