|
mission
statement
|
|
|
| Our viewing
of plants is changing dramatically away from passive entities being
merely subject to environmental forces and organisms that are designed
solely for accumulation of photosynthate. In contrast, plants emerge
as dynamic and highly sensitive organisms that actively and competitively
forage for limited resources, both above and below ground, organisms
that accurately compute their circumstances, use sophisticated cost
benefit analysis, and that take defined actions to mitigate and control
diverse environmental insults. Moreover, plants are also capable of
a refined recognition of self and non-self and are territorial in
behavior. This new view sees plants as information processing organisms
with complex communication throughout the individual plant. Plants
are as sophisticated in behavior as animals but their potential has
been masked because it operates on time scales many orders of magnitude
less than that operating in animals. |
| Plants are sessile
organisms. Due to this lifestyle, the only alternative to rapidly
changing environment is rapid adaptation. Therefore, plants have developed
a very robust signaling apparatus. Signaling in plants encompasses
both chemical and physical communication pathways. The chemical communication
is based either on vesicular trafficking pathways, as accomplished
also across neuronal synapses in brains, or through direct cell-cell
communication via cell-cell channels known as plasmodesmata. Moreover,
there are numerous signal molecules generated within cell walls and
also diffusible signals, such as NO, ROS and ethylene, penetrating
cells from exocellular space. On the other hand, physical communication
is based on electrical, hydraulic, and mechanical signals. Besides
interaction with the environment, plants interact with other communicative
systems such as other plants, fungi, nematodes, bacteria, viruses,
insects, and predatory animals. |
| Plant Signaling
& Behavior will serve as platform for publication of data
related to communication at different levels of biological organization:
from molecules, via protein complexes (signalosomes), membranes, organelles,
cells, organs, whole plants, up to plant communities. Studies on communication
and interactions of plants with viruses, bacteria, nematodes, fungi,
insects, and predatory animals will also be covered by the journal.
These interactions can be pathogenic, symbiotic or predatory. |
| Twentieth-century
biology was dominated by attempts to reduce complex biological phenomena
to the actions of single molecules. While this process will continue
in future, we also need to integrate the avalanche of obtained data
together using system-based approaches. Plant Signaling & Behavior
will provide forum for the integration of molecular biology with physiology,
phenomenology, and behavior of individual organisms, up to the system
analysis of whole plant societies and ecosystems. This integrative
view will allow our understanding of communicative plants in their
whole complexity. Last but not least, parts of the journal will be
devoted to plants and plant processes with a potency to be exploited
as biosensors. |
| |
| |
|
Sign up for Table of Contents Alerts!
