About this Research Topic

Background

Flowering at the right time is of great importance in plants, for it secures seed production and, therefore species survival and crop yield. It has become clear that stresses can play a role in regulating flowering time. A variety of stress variables, such as light, UV light, temperature, nutritional status, nitrogen deficiency, drought, oxygen, pruning, etc., can induce or accelerate flowering, or inhibit or delay it, in a wide range of plant species. This topic focuses on the positive regulation of flowering via stress, i.e. the induction or acceleration of flowering in response to stress, known as stress-induced flowering.

Stresses affect plant growth and productivity, involving different regulatory pathways. Any stimulus can trigger relative gene expression and lead to physiological changes. These signal transduction pathways act independently but also have significant crosstalk among them. When to initiate flowering is a critical step for plants. Under the control of a complex genetic network, plants can detect and integrate external signals to induce or accelerate flowering. The transition from a vegetative phase to a reproductive phase is controlled by specific pathways, which incorporate the endogenous developmental state and cues of stress. Some genes are not only involved in the flowering pathways but also take part in other metabolism pathways during stress-induced flowering. The change of flowering phenology reflects the adaptability of plants to stress and their evolutionary potential.

The Research Topic aims to study the effects of various stresses on induced or accelerated flowering in plants, particularly crops. In the long term, understanding the physiological, molecular, and genetic mechanisms of this developmental stage will be crucial for applying stress treatments to flowering induction for crop breeding and will provide new insights into further understanding of the complex mechanisms of stress transduction networks.

We welcome submissions of various article types, including but not limited to original research articles, methods, reviews, mini-reviews, and perspectives. The Research Topic includes, but is not limited to, research on the following sub-themes:
• Identification of new, stress-induced flowering genes in crops.
• Stress perception and signal transition to induce flowering in crops.
• Identification of new metabolites during stress-induced flowering in crops.
• The cellular, biochemical, physiological mechanism during the induction or acceleration of flowering in crops under stress.
• Improvement of stress-induced flowering by novel technology (biotechnology or chemistry).

Keywords: plants, stress-induced flowering, metabolism, gene expression, signaling, regulation mechanism

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