Temporal network analysis of mild drought in Brassica rapa

If you whithold water from a plant it eventually will wilt, but before this visible change there are other measurable effects and responses. However, many plant processes change cyclically over a 24-hour period independently of early drought responses, so it can be difficult to separate drought-responsive changes in physiology or gene expression against their dynamic baselines. Greenham, Guadagno  et al. compared daily physiological (stomatal conductance, photosynthetic rate and Photosystem II efficiency) and gene expression (RNA-seq) levels in well-watered vs droughted Brassica rapa to identify those changes specific to the drought response. This then allowed them to correlate physiological responses to drought-specific transcriptional responses, “suggesting an early sensing of the drought treatment at the molecular level.” eLIFE 10.7554/eLife.29655.001