TY  - JOUR
A1  - Laitinen, Roosa A. E.
A1  - Nikoloski, Zoran
T1  - Genetic basis of plasticity in plants
JF  - Journal of experimental botany
N2  - The ability of an organism to change its phenotype in response to different environments, termed plasticity, is a particularly important characteristic to enable sessile plants to adapt to rapid changes in their surroundings. Plasticity is a quantitative trait that can provide a fitness advantage and mitigate negative effects due to environmental perturbations. Yet, its genetic basis is not fully understood. Alongside technological limitations, the main challenge in studying plasticity has been the selection of suitable approaches for quantification of phenotypic plasticity. Here, we propose a categorization of the existing quantitative measures of phenotypic plasticity into nominal and relative approaches. Moreover, we highlight the recent advances in the understanding of the genetic architecture underlying phenotypic plasticity in plants. We identify four pillars for future research to uncover the genetic basis of phenotypic plasticity, with emphasis on development of computational approaches and theories. These developments will allow us to perform specific experiments to validate the causal genes for plasticity and to discover their role in plant fitness and evolution.
KW  - Genetic architecture
KW  - GWA
KW  - GxE interaction
KW  - hub genes
KW  - plant adaptation
KW  - plasticity
KW  - variance
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1093/jxb/ery404
SN  - 0022-0957
SN  - 1460-2431
VL  - 70
IS  - 3
SP  - 739
EP  - 745
PB  - Oxford Univ. Press
CY  - Oxford
ER  -