Growth and developmentThe diversity of plant development

Abstract

www.sciencedirect.com The reviews on plant development presented here cover a wide range of subjects that seem only loosely connected. In a sense, this is a departure from the direction of the field over the past 15 years with its increasing focus on Arabidopsis as a model system. It is legitimate to ask whether we have lost something by narrowing our attention on a single species. Will Arabidopsis be like the Escherichia coli of the 1980s? Is it a powerful model system soon to be abandoned because it has made more complex systems accessible? Or to put it positively: does the remarkable progress made in Arabidopsis, combined with the ever increasing power of brute-force genomics, allow us to broaden our horizons again, revisit classical problems and perhaps identify novel avenues for research? While there is no sign at all of Arabidopsis losing its attractiveness, it is also true that alternative model species and comparative analyses are beginning to regain popularity. In this issue of Current Opinion in Plant Biology, we have attempted to provide examples of this new trend. In plant developmental biology, progress has been made on three fronts: comparative studies at the molecular and genetic level are illuminating the history of morphogenesis in plants; the evolution of key molecular players in developmental regulation is also being elucidated; and finally, developmental principles are being elucidated in the context of the whole organ or organism by utilizing real-time analyses and computer modeling.