As sessile living things, plants must adapt and respond to their ever-changing environments. And in recent years, understanding how roots may regulate high temperatures has gained traction among scientists.
Biologists thought young plant shoots controlled temperature within the plants and acted as a transmitter that signaled the root to alter its growth, said Marcel Quint, a plant biologist and study author at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, in a statement.
Now, plant biologists found that roots can also measure heat without help from the plant's shoots to help regulate temperatures, in a recent study published in The EMBO Journal. The find gives researchers insight into creating more drought-resistant plants on a warming planet.
Previously, researchers have investigated how plants respond to temperature using various coping strategies. One growth adaption that promotes plant organ growth as a response to high temperatures is called thermomorphogenesis. The method helps plants cool down by ...
