Why Plants Need Winter: The Science of Seasonal Timing

Speaker: Caroline Dean (Group Leader, Royal Society Professor, John Innes Centre)
Series: SciSoc – Cambridge University Scientific Society
Admission (organiser's words): [All talks are free to attend.]

[All talks are free to attend.]

How do organisms extract timing information from noisy environments? Plants are masters at using winter's naturally varying temperatures to judge seasonal progression. Plants prevent flowering in autumn by producing a floral brake (a transcriptional repressor called FLC). Winter temperatures epigenetically silence FLC gradually releasing this brake with an epigenetic memory mechanism also found in humans. Rather than a specific thermosensor, multiple facets of the naturally varying daily temperature act on different aspects of FLC regulation to promote the epigenetic switch. This ensures accurate flowering even in varying conditions. An understanding of these temperature sensing and epigenetic mechanisms is helping develop climate-proof plant/crop varieties.