Plant roots sense soil compaction through restricted ethylene diffusion

Pandey, Bipin K.; Huang, Guoqiang; Bhosale, Rahul; Hartman, Sjon; Sturrock, Craig J.; Jose, Lottie; Martin, Olivier C.; Karady, Michal; Voesenek, Laurentius A. C. J.; Ljung, Karin; Lynch, Jonathan P.; Brown, Kathleen M.; Whalley, William R.; Mooney, Sacha J.; Zhang, Dabing; Bennett, Malcolm J.

Abstract

© 2021 The Authors, some rights reserved. Soil compaction represents a major challenge for modern agriculture. Compaction is intuitively thought to reduce root growth by limiting the ability of roots to penetrate harder soils. We report that root growth in compacted soil is instead actively suppressed by the volatile hormone ethylene. We found that mutant Arabidopsis and rice roots that were insensitive to ethylene penetrated compacted soil more effectively than did wild-type roots. Our results indicate that soil compaction lowers gas diffusion through a reduction in air-filled pores, thereby causing ethylene to accumulate in root tissues and trigger hormone responses that restrict growth. We propose that ethylene acts as an early warning signal for roots to avoid compacted soils, which would be relevant to research into the breeding of crops resilient to soil compaction.

Citation

Pandey, B. K., Huang, G., Bhosale, R., Hartman, S., Sturrock, C. J., Jose, L., Martin, O. C., Karady, M., Voesenek, L. A. C. J., Ljung, K., Lynch, J. P., Brown, K. M., Whalley, W. R., Mooney, S. J., Zhang, D., & Bennett, M. J. (2021). Plant roots sense soil compaction through restricted ethylene diffusion. Science, 371(6526), 276-280. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abf3013

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 8, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Jan 15, 2021
• Publication Date: Jan 15, 2021
• Deposit Date: Jan 18, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 29, 2021
• Journal: Science
• Print ISSN: 0036-8075
• Electronic ISSN: 1095-9203
• Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 371
• Issue: 6526
• Pages: 276-280
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abf3013
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5234573
• Publisher URL: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6526/276
• Additional Information: This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here by permission of the AAAS for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Science on 15/01/2021 Vol. 371 15th January 2021], DOI: 10.1126/science.abf3013