Leaves are the main photosynthetic organs in plants, and their anatomy is optimized for light interception and gas exchange. Although each species has a characteristic leaf anatomy, which depends on the genotype, leaves also show a large degree of developmental plasticity. Light and temperature regulate leaf development from primordia differentiation to late stages of blade expansion. While the molecular mechanisms of light and temperature signaling have been mostly studied in seedlings, in the latest years, research has focused on leaf development. Here, I will describe the latest work carried out in the environmental regulation of Arabidopsis leaf development, comparing signaling mechanisms between leaves and seedlings, highlighting the new discoveries, and pointing out the most exciting open questions.

Biography

Martina Legris is an assistant professor at the Institute of Biology, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. From early in her career, she has been fascinated by plant developmental plasticity, and since her Master's degree she has been working on plant development in response to light and temperature signals from the environment. Martina is from Argentina. She did her Bachelor, Master and PhD studies in Biology at the University of Buenos Aires doing research at the Leloir Institute. During her PhD, under the supervision of Jorge Casal, she focused on the interaction between light and temperature signalling and found that the activity of the light receptor phytochrome B is also regulated by temperature. For her postdoc, she moved to Christian Fankhauser's laboratory in Lausanne, Switzerland, where she focused on the blue light receptors phototropins. There she described the mechanisms of directional signal perception in leaves and hypocotyls. In her current project she is focusing on how plants modify their shoot architecture in response to light and temperature signals from the environment. In addition to doing research, Martina enjoys teaching plant biology and organizing science outreach activities.