Environmental stress and flowering time

Abstract

Plants maximize their chances to survive adversities by reprogramming their development according to environmental conditions. Adaptive variations in the timing to flowering reflect the need for plants to set seeds under the most favorable conditions. A complex network of genetic pathways allows plants to detect and integrate external (e.g., photoperiod and temperature) and/or internal (e.g., age) information to initiate the floral transition. Furthermore different types of environmental stresses play an important role in the floral transition. The emerging picture is that stress conditions often affect flowering through modulation of the photoperiodic pathway. In this review we will discuss different modes of cross talk between stress signaling and photoperiodic flowering, highlighting the central role of the florigen genes in this process.

ABA-dependent control ofGIGANTEAsignalling enables drought escape via up-regulation ofFLOWERING LOCUS TinArabidopsis thaliana

“…However, CO transcript levels are not greatly affected by drought stress or when ABA level are reduced (Han et al , 2013; Riboni et al , 2014). Here we wanted to test whether drought could affect flowering downstream of CO transcriptional activation events, by analysing mutants of cdf1-R cdf2-1 cdf3-1 cdf5-1 , hereafter referred to as cdf1235 , characterized by constitutively elevated CO levels (Fornara et al , 2009).…”

“…Depending on the intensity and duration of drought episodes, some plants can also respond adaptively, by activating the drought escape (DE) response (Franks, 2011; Riboni et al , 2013, 2014; Kazan and Lyons, 2016). DE allows plants to accelerate the floral transition and set seeds before drought conditions become too severe.…”

Transcriptional Mechanism of Jasmonate Receptor COI1-Mediated Delay of Flowering Time in Arabidopsis

“…Ultimately, signaling information in all these pathways is integrated into flowering genetic networks through a small group of floral pathway integrators, such as FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT), SUPPRESSOR OF OVEREXPRESSION OF CO1, and LEAFY, whose accumulation in the shoot apical meristem (SAM) promotes the identity switching of the SAM from vegetative to reproductive (Srikanth and Schmid, 2011;Song et al, 2013). Furthermore, an ever-growing body of evidence indicates that different environmental constraints, such as cold, drought, salinity, and pathogen infection, also affect the timing of flowering Yaish et al, 2011;Li et al, 2012;Bolouri Moghaddam and Van den Ende, 2013;Riboni et al, 2014). The emerging picture is that these environmental constraints often exert their effects on flowering through modulating the expression of the floral integrators.…”

Rhythms in Plants

“…Another part of the control system perceives environmental signals such as daylength, ambient temperature (vernalization, a treatment where low temperature is necessary for flowering to occur (Turck and Coupland 2014;Wellmer et al 2014;Ream et al 2012)), humidity of the soil as well as biotic (e.g., pathogen infections) and abiotic stresses (cold, dehydration, high salinity and osmotic stress, see Yamada and Takeno 2014;Riboni et al 2014). If this environment-reactive pathway reports the right conditions, flowering is induced.…”