Remarkable progress has been made recently in our capacity to ascribe functions to plant genes, and to measure and interpret large numbers of transcripts, proteins and metabolites. As a result, we have a detailed understanding of many plant processes that were largely unknown two decades ago. Generally speaking, this understanding has been acquired through study of Arabidopsis plants grown under closely defined, rather constant conditions that are very different from those in which plants evolved, and in which they normally grow. We now need to face the challenge of understanding plants in the real world. I will use examples from my own experience in plant carbohydrate metabolism to illustrate the complexity and magnitude of this challenge. How do plants cope with the fundamental problem of alternating day and night, and with the continuous fluctuations in temperature, light and availability of water and nutrients that occur in natural and farmed environments? To what extent can we extrapolate from Arabidopsis to – for example – grasses, and trees? Will the answers to these questions change as the Earth’s atmosphere is changed by human activity? Can we as plant scientists agree a set of priorities, and collaborate together to achieve them sufficiently rapidly to provide the sustainable sources of food and raw materials that will be required by a planet with nine billion people?
[mehr]