Food for thought: How nutrients regulate root system architecture (Current Opinion in Plant Biology)

The arrangement of a plant’s root system in the soil (root system architecture, RSA) changes in response to nutrients through different signaling pathways. It is assumed that RSA adapts to optimize the uptake of nutrients from the environment, but strong evidence is still lacking. This review by Shahzad and Amtmann discusses the signaling pathways that describe RSA responses to nutrients such as nitrate and phosphate, as well as responses to multiple nutrients. Current research into the crosstalk between different signaling pathways is also described. Understanding RSA could lead to crops better suited for sustainable production on marginal soils.

Our Tweet of this publication was retweeted 39 times and had 104 likes in May 2018. (Summary by Julia Miller, originally included in the October 27th edition of What We’re Reading https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pbi.2017.06.008)