Stomata are drivers of in planta processes of gas exchange and hydraulics, allowing an intake of carbon dioxide while limiting the simultaneous release of water. These two processes make stomata integral to plant function, but also strong contributors to climate and hydrological processes across space and time. Over the last two decades, the scientific community has reached a critical mass of knowledge concerning the genetic underpinnings of stomatal development and physiology, much of it from the model angiosperm Arabidopsis. These insights have unmasked the building blocks regulating stomata formation and function in land plants. We are also now beginning to understand the ancient genetic underpinnings of stomatal development as well as divergence and diversity between plant groups and species. In this Research Topic, we highlight stomatal-related processes from an organismal and ecological perspective and their importance at different spatial and temporal scales. Through these research articles and reviews we aim to connect the knowledge of the fundamental mechanisms of cellular development and stomatal physiology with the translation and application of these traits to crop species and environmental issues.

We welcome submissions of Original Research, Reviews, and Opinion articles encompassing the breadth of stomatal research. In particular, we encourage those that bridge knowledge gaps between the molecular genetics of stomatal development and physiology; model, non-model, and crop species; evo-devo and ecological processes.

To approach the vast continuum of stomatal research across scales, our Research Topic addresses the following themes and related questions:

1. Coordination of stomatal development with plant growth, development and environmental signaling.
How do changes in the core developmental program - at the gene sequence, protein expression, or cellular level - explain natural variation in stomatal traits (including stomatal function, density, size, or gsmax)?

2. The role of stomatal development in plant acclimation and adaptation to the environment.
How does intraspecies stomatal developmental plasticity facilitate environmental acclimation or improve physiological performance? How have stomatal morphology, patterning, and physiology been modified by plants to adapt to specific environments and evolutionary pressures?

3. Influence of stomatal development and function on plant resource use (e.g carbon, nutrients, and water), ecosystem processes, and global climate.
How important is the developmental program relative to guard cell mediated physiology? Does the balance shift at different scales (organismal, ecosystem, global)? How do stomata sense and respond to water availability and how does this affect C3, C4 and CAM photosynthesis in water-limited environments? How do stomatal traits feed back to ecosystem and environmental processes?

4. Selection for stomatal traits in plant evolution, crop domestication and breeding, and designing food for the future.
How have crop domestication and recent crop breeding affected stomatal traits and how can we exploit stomatal mechanisms and variation to develop the crops of the future?

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Frontiers in Plant Science

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