Andrés Romanowski

Andrés Romanowski

Chronobiologist

TIME_FOR_SHADE

Welcome to Time For Shade!

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What is Time For Shade (#T4S)? Why is it important?

The United Nations has set “Zero Hunger” as its 2nd Goal of Sustainable Development. According to this mandate, 815 million people today are suffering hunger and this number is expected to reach 2 billion by 2050. To meet these demands we need to increase food production. This can be achieved through 2 main mechanisms: arable land expansion or yield growth. As arable land becomes scarcer, we need to focus our efforts on increasing yield. The goal is to rethink agriculture.

Light limitation due to long-term shading by neighbouring plants is a major threat to food security, as it decreases overall yield. At high vegetation densities, shade-intolerant plants switch to a survival growth strategy known as the shade avoidance syndrome (SAS), that reconfigures overall architecture for optimal light capture. Of the diverse light-sensing photoreceptors that plants possess, phytochrome photoreceptors are exquisitely tuned to detect spectral changes indicative of nearby vegetation. These changes in light quality activate the phytochrome surveillance system, which in turn initiates compensatory changes in plant architecture and reproductive timing to suit more crowded conditions. Plants exhibiting SAS are characterised by elongation of growth of stem-like tissue, at the expense of harvestable organs (leaves, fruits, seeds, etc.). In nature, SAS is critical for plant survival, but it is troublesome for farmers, as it impacts crop robustness and yield. Interestingly, we have shown that the SAS response is tissue and developmental time specific. For example, if SAS occurs early in leaf development it leads to reduced cell numbers in leaf blades, and increased cell numbers in the leaf petioles. Whereas if this happens later in a leaf life, it reduces the cell size in leaf blades and increases it in leaf petioles. Overall, the plant uses two alternative strategies to obtain the same result: small leaf blades and elongated petioles.

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Several lines of research indicate that the shade signal is only perceived by plants at dusk, through a mechanism known as ‘gating’. Gating is controlled by the plant’s internal clock – namely the circadian clock. This endogenous timing mechanism allows a plant to fine-tune its physiology to a cyclical environment. Furthermore, proper internal timing that matches the environment is beneficial for plants and leads to optimised fitness and survival. However, almost nothing is known about how gating affects plant fitness under SAS. Our data indicate that disruption of different elements that make up the clock results in plants that have an architecture very similar to SAS affected plants. Furthermore, as the clock has been tied to the cell cycle, this suggests a possible mechanism through which the clock could be directly controlling the leaf cellular response under SAS. Additionally, using a powerful bioinformatics approach we discovered an unexpected and potentially new avenue through which the clock and the phytochrome photoreceptors could be coordinately regulating leaf size, ultimately impacting biomass (a key predictor of crop yield).

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T4S is an innovative project, using genetic, bioinformatics, novel tools and dynamic 3D imaging techniques to study how the circadian clock affects plant fitness under light limiting conditions, and explore the mechanism that links the clock to the SAS leaf cellular response. Moreover, identification of novel genetic targets will be eventually translated into pennycress, a newly domesticated oilseed crop. This will likely lead to increased crop yield and will inform other crop improvement efforts.

Academic Impact

Meetings and talks

We have reached broad academic impact through participation in talks and meetings:

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At the European Biological Rhythms Society (EBRS) meeting in beautiful Zurich, Switzerland.

I will also attend the ‘International Symposium in Plant Photobiology’ (ISPP) to be held in India, early in January 2024, to further expand my research networks and disseminate the resulting work of this action.

Meetings organisation

I am currently the chair of the ‘2024 Young Researchers Symposium in Plant Photobiology’ (YRSPP 2024) organising committee, to be held in July, 2024 in Utrecht, NL.

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The honour of organising YRSPP2024 being bestowed upon us!

Publications and Open Access

Publications arising from results of this action will be published in open access journals to maximise the range of academic beneficiaries. All datasets will be deposited in public repositories.

New collaborations!

Additionally, T4S has allowed me to collaborate internally with 3 other lab members to help analyse their transcriptomics datasets, which will likely lead to 3 future paper publications.

Impact beyond research

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI)

As an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) committee member, I helped drive actions towards achieving the goals set in the UU Faculty of Science Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Plan 2021-2025. As the EDI project leader I helped establish 4 working groups with volunteers from all departments of the Faculty of Science to work on concrete actions related to EDI.

Open Science

As an Open Science ambassador, I helped write and put into action a Data Management Guideline for the group (jointly with Dr. Daan Weits and Dr. Kaisa Kajala), as well as to help create an R club (jointly with Dr. Leonardo Jo and Dr. Pierre Gautrat) to increase R literacy within the plant science groups of the department.

Outreach

I participated at the Bachellor Showcase outreach event organised by the Utrechtse Biologen Vereniging (Utrecht, NL), as a Plant Sciences ambassador representing the entire group (January 19, 2023, Utrecht University, Utrecht, NL). It was an opportunity to meet several Biology BSc students at different points in their career and talk to them about the different plant science initiatives and projects that were currently taking place within the UU Plant-Environment Signaling group.

Industry engagement

I will present a poster at the fourth biannual Utrecht Plant Science and Industry Symposium (UPSIS) 2023 (September 29, 2023, Utrecht, NL) to network with potential industry partners. Here, I will discuss possibilities for translation of our fundamental research to application and to hear about the current challenges and problems in the plant industry. In this regard, UPSIS aims to facilitate one-on-one discussions during the poster and networking sessions. These sessions will not only provide me with an excellent opportunity to meet with the Utrecht staff, but also with Utrecht PhD candidates, MSc students and potential industry partners.

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Everyone at the group in Utrecht has been amazing!

Acknowledgements

alt text This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101026742 - TIME_FOR_SHADE