Plants respond to spatially and temporally variable soil nutrients through root architectural plasticity, regulation of uptake and assimilation per root unit, and plant–soil–microbiome interactions. Although often viewed as complementary, these responses can also behave as compensatory strategies. Under non-optimal nutrient distributions, plants may invest either in greater root proliferation or in higher uptake capacity per root unit. We propose that this development–transport relationship should be understood as an optimization problem, rather than an additive response. Comparable morphology–physiology trade-offs occur in other resource-acquiring organs, including the gut and the lungs. Tuning or partially uncoupling these constraints could redefine crop ideotypes as dynamic combinations of root architecture, physiological elasticity, and controlled rhizosphere outsourcing, opening new routes to improve nutritional efficiencies.

A very large proportion of false specific DEG when using few replicates and Venn Diagramms.   Omics analyses represent a crucial step in the search for condition-specific events and often rely on Venn diagrams. In stress experiments for example, the presence of differentially expressed genes exclusively under combined stress conditions is frequently interpreted as evidence of non-additive effects: the effect of combined stresses would differ from the sum of the effects of individual stresses.   In an article published in Nature Plants (Ferraro et al. 2026), to test the relevance of this line of reasoning, the Gnet team and the OGE team with several collaborators at IPS2, and the POPS, PAPPSO and Phenoscope platforms, generated a transcriptomic and proteomic dataset under a control condition, two single stresses, and the combination of both stresses, with 22 biological replicates.   Analysing this dataset, Ferraro et al. demonstrate that identifying specific responses using Venn diagrams generates many false positives. This is explained by the low statistical power inherent in most omics studies that use  too few replicates (typically around 3).   Ferraro et al. 2026 thus highlights the need to interpret any claims about the specificity of such omics datasets with caution, and advocate for improvements in statistical modeling to avoid misleading biological interpretations.   Contact : guillem.rigaill@universite-paris-saclay.fr   https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-026-02303-x     Figure: Evolution of the number of true and false specific DEGs as a function of the number of replicates. (Left) Venn diagram of DEGs under single and combined stress conditions; (Right) Number of genes correctly identified as specific (blue), falsely identified as specific (red), and falsely identified as differentially expressed (gray) as a function of the number of replicates.

Parliament has adopted new rules facilitating access to new plants that are climate and pest resistant, give higher yields and require fewer pesticides.

Registration is now open for the International SPS Symposium 2026 “Today’s research, plants of tomorrow”, taking place from October 14 to October16, 2026.

Abstract. Target of rapamycin (TOR) signaling plays a pivotal role in regulating various cellular processes, including energy metabolism and growth. In thi

Guanosine tetraphosphate (ppGpp) is a hyperphosphorylated nucleotide originally discovered in prokaryotes and found in the chloroplasts of plants and algae. In plants, ppGpp signalling plays a role as...

Target of rapamycin (TOR) is a conserved protein kinase and an important signalling hub in eukaryotes. The moss Physcomitrella (Physcomitrium patens) is a model organism for plant physiology, developm...

You have to enable JavaScript in your browser's settings in order to use the eReader.

Nature Plants - Plants often experience multiple stresses to which they adapt by mounting specific responses. Nitrogen supply allows plants to better recover from drought, and this is linked to...