Photoreceptor and photosynthetic regulation of stomatal development

Our work is focused on understanding the signalling mechanisms that mediate plant developmental changes in response to environmental signals. Stomata, the microscopic pores on the leaf surface, are an excellent model for examining how environmental signals modulate plant development. Factors such as light quantity and quality as well as atmospheric carbon dioxide have a major impact on stomatal development. Using a combination of genetic and molecular tools our work has demonstrated that plant photoreceptors, significantly phyB, play a critical role in regulating stomatal development in response to environmental signals. However, photoreceptor signalling is insufficient to explain some light responses and here, photosynthetic regulation plays a major role. This pathway targets key stomatal regulators and in combination with photoreceptor control, allows for fine tuning of stomatal development under different conditions.