About this Research Topic

Background

Plant architecture refers to the morphology and structure of plants in space and time, in other words, the three-dimensional organization of the plant body. It is the result of the meristem functioning and is determined by the number, size, and relative arrangement of its aerial and underground vegetative axes, and by the active reorientation that these axes may undergo in their environment. Vegetal architecture, the shape of the plant, is the expression of a balance between the endogenous developmental program and the effects of the environment (light, temperature, humidity, and nutrient status).

Plant architecture has important ecological and agronomic management implications and also aids in establishing taxonomic and phylogenetic relationships. It is of major agronomic importance since plant architecture is highly modified during the domestication of crops. Such structural changes in the plant body have greatly modified the behavior of crops in different environments, including stressful ones, such as their yield and harvesting efficiency.

A better understanding of the structural patterns and the molecular-genetic regulation of the plant form will enable further knowledge of the development and morphogenesis processes of plants, providing relevant information for crop improvement. This in turn will help us to modify agronomic relevant traits.

Despite some progress in this field, the understanding of the morphogenetic processes and the development of plant architecture remains limited. This Research Topic, therefore, aims to compile articles of all types, covering (but not limited to) the following subtopics:

1. Plant structural patterns:
· Root structural patterns plus their functional relevance, e.g. in plant anchorage;
· Shoot structural patterns: the vegetative shoot (stem and leaf); branching and apical dominance; branching and determination; leaf arrangement (phyllotaxis); the transition to flowering;
· Structural patterns of flowers and their members;
· The inflorescence: branching system: determinate and indeterminate;
· Development of plant posture: the holding of leaves and other parts in their correct position.
2. Molecular-genetic regulation of these structural patterns;
3. Environmental conditions/abiotic stresses and modifications of these structural patterns;
4. Evolution of plant architecture/plant form/structural patterns.

Please note that manuscripts that contain only structural descriptions, and do not provide functional and mechanistic insights, will not be considered for publication in this Research Topic.

Keywords: plant architecture, morphology, structure

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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