Within the Centre for Plant Success, the theme “Discovering mechanisms and principles of biology” we seek to uncover the gene networks and physiology that govern plant development and response to environmental cues and stress. We work across a wide range of species and processes to provide fundamental information that informs and underpins research undertaken in the Centre on genotype–phenotype models and understanding of trait evolution.

We seek to discover and build genetic, transcriptional, metabolic and physiological pathways that explain how plants grow, develop and respond to the environment. This work is done across the range of land plants, from non-vascular species to herbs and trees, giving us insight into highly conserved and divergent aspects of plant development and physiology. We have chosen to investigate processes with major implications for plant success in nature and agriculture, including the control of shoot architecture, flowering and apical arrest, interactions with beneficial microbes, water relations and response to heat and drought stress. We are also working to understand how these networks interact, in particular the interaction between flowering and shoot architecture, as well as trade-offs between growth, symbioses and stress responses. As plant hormones and secondary metabolites, such a sporopollenin, are a major factor in controlling these traits, we also focus on understanding how these pathways have evolved. This enables us to understand the evolution of complex traits and provides a context for future modification of these pathways to optimise crop performance.

Recent discoveries and innovations have been made in our understanding of water relations and drought tolerance. We have discovered divergent drought response strategies within species that highlights complex genetic and environmental control over leaf cuticle composition, and we have pioneered new techniques to observe trait syndromes that underpin plant water transport function in response to changes in the environment. These provide us with new tools to understand and select superior plant genotypes in a drying world. We have made discoveries in how plants control development, including how plants connect sugar and hormone pathways to control architecture, the hormonal control of formation of new lateral root organs and insights into the evolution of secondary wall features, fundamental information we can now deploy in building predictive genotype to phenotype models.