Nitrate and phosphate availability and distribution have different effects on root system architecture of Arabidopsis.

By Birgit Linkohr, L. Williamson, A. Fitter, H. Leyser. The Plant Journal, 2002

645 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Plant root systems can respond to nutrient availability and distribution by changing the three-dimensional deployment of their roots: their root system architecture (RSA). We have compared RSA in homogeneous and heterogeneous nitrate and phosphate supply in Arabidopsis. Changes in nitrate and phosphate availability were found to have contrasting effects on primary root length and lateral root density, but similar effects on lateral root length. Relative to shoot dry weight (DW), primary root length decreased with increasing nitrate availability, while it increased with increasing phosphate supply. Lateral root density remained constant across a range of nitrate supplies, but decreased with increasing phosphate supply. In contrast, lateral root elongation was suppressed both by high nitrate and high phosphate supplies. Local supplies of high nitrate or phosphate in a patch also had different effects. Primary root growth was not affected by a high nitrate patch, but growth through a high phosphate patch reduced primary root growth after the root left the patch. A high nitrate patch induced an increase in lateral root density in the patch, whereas lateral root density was unaffected by a high phosphate patch. However, both phosphate- and nitrate-rich patches induced lateral root elongation in the patch and suppressed it outside the patch. This co-ordinated response of lateral roots also occurs in soil-grown plants exposed to a nutrient-rich patch. The auxin-resistant mutants axrl, axr4 and aux1 all showed the wild-type lateral root elongation responses to a nitrate-rich patch, suggesting that auxin is not required for this response.

Subfields: Plant Science

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Citations in the corpus

Nitrate-responsive miR393/AFB3 regulatory module controls root system architecture in Arabidopsis thaliana (2010, background): “The inhibitory effect of KNO3 on primary root length was also seen after 18 days of continuous growth in vertical plates containing high nitrate concentrations in Arabidopsis (72).”
Signaling network in sensing phosphate availability in plants. (2011, background): “Many characteristic changes in root system architecture (RSA) are controlled by the local Pi supply independently of the internal Pi content (4, 57, 70, 124, 127), implicating a local sensing and signaling route.”
Luxury consumption of soil nutrients: a possible competitive strategy in above‐ground and below‐ground biomass allocation and root morphology for slow‐growing arctic vegetation? (2003, background): “Increased root lengths in response to fertilization, and especially in response to increased N availability, have been shown in other studies (Linkohr et al. 2002; Weber & Day 1996) and have also been shown as a response to the presence of nutrient-rich patches (Hodge et al. 1999).”
Intrinsic and environmental response pathways that regulate root system architecture. (2005, background): “Zhang and Forde ascribe this to a strong increase in lateral root elongation in the nitrate patch region, whereas Linkohr et al. (2002) found that the unequal distribution of lateral roots is also due to repression of lateral root elongation outside the nitrate (or phosphate) patch.”
Do plants need nitrate? The mechanisms by which nitrogen form affects plants (2013, background): “The effect of NO3− on primary root growth has been shown to be less than on lateral roots, but more varied (Granato & Raper, 1989; Zhang & Forde, 1998; Linkohr et al., 2002).”
Differential genetic influences on competitive effect and response in Arabidopsis thaliana (2005, result): “2002), although other studies have reported axr4 to show wild-type root proliferation responses (Williamson et al. 2001; Linkohr et al. 2002).”
Modelling the rhizosphere: a review of methods for ‘upscaling’ to the whole‐plant scale (2006, background): “The signal transduction pathway remains uncertain, however, with some evidence for the involvement of auxin in the responses to both N and P (Forde, 2002; Al-Ghazi et al., 2003), whereas Linkohr et al. (2002) found that auxin-deficient Arabidopsis mutants behave like wild-type plants.”
WRKY75 Transcription Factor Is a Modulator of Phosphate Acquisition and Root Development in Arabidopsis1[C][W][OA] (2007, background): “Evidences have been provided earlier showing that primary root growth is influenced by localized Pi deprivation (Linkohr et al., 2002; Ticconi et al., 2004), suggesting that lateral roots could be regulated sys- temically.”