Plants adjust their development to environmental conditions. This incredible flexibility is exhibited in tropic responses, like phototropism, but also extends beyond the individual organ scale. In the Jukowska lab, we are interested in how environmental stress shapes plant architecture. Stress exposure often induces quiescence of growth through modification of cell cycle activity, cell expansion and cell wall extensibility. The period of initial growth arrest and the extent of recovered growth differs between individual organs leading to altered plant morphology. The current focus of the Julkowska lab is studying the salt-induced changes in whole plant morphology of model plant Arabidopsis, as well as salt stress-induced changes in root system architecture in Arabidopsis and environmentally resilient wild tomato, Solanum pimpinellifolium.
