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SUMMARY:Stomatal development and evolution - Julie Gray\, Sheffield
DTSTART:20111117T160000Z
DTEND:20111117T170000Z
UID:TALK31548@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Jill Harrison
DESCRIPTION:Plants respond to a range of environmental stimuli by adjustin
 g the apertures of their stomatal pores or\, in the longer term\, altering
  the number of stomata that develop on new leaves. We have been investigat
 ing the environmental and molecular signals that control stomatal developm
 ent using Arabidopsis thaliana mutants. We have studied a family of secret
 ed peptide signals that act as positive or negative regulators of stomatal
  development. By manipulating the level of these peptides signals we have 
 produced plants that exhibit stomatal densities ranging from 20% to 300% o
 f wild-type. These plants are offering us the potential to investigate the
  optimal stomatal density for plant growth under future predicted environm
 ents. \n\nTo begin to explore the evolutionary origins of stomatal signall
 ing pathways\, we have investigated the stomatal-like structures that are 
 present on moss sporophytes and the stomata of the lycophyte Selaginella. 
 These moss and lycophyte stomata are able to respond to environmental stim
 uli in a similar manner to Arabidopsis stomata\, and our cross-species com
 plementation experiments indicate that stomata have employed the same mole
 cular signalling mechanisms for over 400 million years.\n
LOCATION:Sainsbury Laboratory\, Cambridge University\, Bateman Street
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