How can we tackle the biggest challenges? Ask a plant
Top 100 plant-science research questions address climate change, food security, medicine and a host of other problems

Date:
March 17, 2023
Source:
DOE/Los Alamos National Laboratory
Summary:
Without plants, we'd have no air to breathe or food to eat, yet
plant science lingers in the shadowy wings while other fields take
center stage. With the goal of shining the spotlight on plants,
a new study presents the field's top 100 most pressing questions
for research to address the greatest challenges facing humanity.


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FULL STORY ========================================================================== Without plants, we'd have no air to breathe or food to eat, yet plant
science lingers in the shadowy wings while other fields take center
stage. With the goal of shining the spotlight on plants, a new study
presents the field's top 100 most pressing questions for research to
address the greatest challenges facing humanity.


==========================================================================
"The study highlights the importance of plant science for society by
laying out myriad questions and technical challenges that, if solved,
could sustainably support the increasing human population on a planet
under climate change," said Sanna Sevanto, a plant physiologist at Los
Alamos National Laboratory and co- author of the study recently published
in the journal New Phytologist.

Wide-ranging questions The questions cover a wide range of topics,
including genetically modified organisms, plant-based fuels, food
scarcity, growing seaweed as a carbon sink, using algae to clean up
oil spills, how soil microorganisms affect stress in plants, and even
growing plants in space to support human life.

Sevanto was one of 20 panelists selected from Europe, North America,
South America, Asia, Oceania and Africa. In four regional teams, the
panelists sifted through more than 600 questions submitted from around
the globe by anyone interested in plants -- not only scientists. The
panelists edited those submissions into a final list of the top 100
most important questions facing plant science in 2022, ranging from
how plants can contribute to tackling climate change, to plant defense,
to epigenetics. The paper revisits a similarly named 2011 paper on the
same subject.

The authors hope the paper will stimulate additional research in the
field, along with funding for it.

"Plant science is often overlooked as an old science with low importance
in school curricula, so interested students often struggle to find
research questions that contribute significantly to the current state
of the art in the field," Sevanto said. "This study shows that plant
science is a modern, highly technical field that can contribute unique solutions to many of the challenges facing humanity and the planet."
Areas of critical global importance The panel selected the top 11
questions that represent areas of critical global importance across
diverse plant-science research:
* Climate change: How will climate change impact plant abundance,
productivity, bioregions and ecosystems?
* Science in the community: How can we ensure that the varied
goals and
needs of our diverse societies are understood and fulfilled by
plant scientists?
* Food security: How do we leverage existing genetic diversity
to create
climate-resilient crops?
* Biodiversity: How does species diversity develop in novel
ecosystems such
as restored agricultural land, forests, grasslands and gardens?
* Sustainability: Could plant-defense priming be a platform for a
new green
revolution?
* Plant-plant interactions: How are interactions between plant species
regulated?
* Plant disease: How should we prepare for novel pathogens of trees,
crops
and the natural environment?
* Plant-microbiome interactions: How does the plant microbiome affect
stress tolerance?
* Plant adaption: What is the plasticity of the epigenome of plants?
* Plant stress responses: How do plants cope with combined stressors?
* Ecosystem services: What natural materials could be invested in
for a
more sustainable future of manufacturing or residential development?
The funding:Laboratory Directed Research and Development program at Los
Alamos National Laboratory
* RELATED_TOPICS
o Plants_&_Animals
# Endangered_Plants # Botany # Nature #
Agriculture_and_Food
o Earth_&_Climate
# Ecology # Environmental_Issues # Environmental_Awareness
# Climate
* RELATED_TERMS
o Botany o Herbivore o Plant_defense_against_being_eaten
o Hummingbird o Phytopathology o Plant o Bioethics o
Plant_breeding

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
DOE/Los_Alamos_National_Laboratory. Note: Content may be edited for
style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Emily May Armstrong, Emily R. Larson, Helen Harper, Cerian R. Webb,
Frank
Dohleman, Yoseph Araya, Claire Meade, Xiangyan Feng, Benard
Mukoye, Maureece J. Levin, Benoit Lacombe, Ahmet Bakirbas, Amanda
A. Cardoso, Delphine Fleury, Arthur Gessler, Deepak Jaiswal,
Nawaporn Onkokesung, Varsha S. Pathare, Shyam S. Phartyal, Sanna
A. Sevanto, Ida Wilson, Claire S. Grierson. One hundred important
questions facing plant science: an international perspective. New
Phytologist, 2023; 238 (2): 470 DOI: 10.1111/nph.18771 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/03/230317144948.htm

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