I am a postdoctoral researcher at the John Innes Centre, in Norwich (UK). My scientific interest revolves around the control of plant development by environmental signals, which I study through a combination of bioinformatics and molecular biology techniques.
PhD in Plant Sciences, 2023
University of Leeds
MSc in Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, 2023
Open University of Catalonia
MSc in Plant Biotechnology, 2019
University of Oviedo
BSc in Environmental Biology, 2018
Autonomous University of Barcelona
Plants integrate environmental information into their developmental program throughout their lifetime. Light and temperature are particularly critical cues for plants to correctly time developmental transitions. Here, we investigated the role of photo-thermal cues in the regulation of the end-of-flowering developmental transition in the model plant Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana). We found that increased day length and higher temperature during flowering promote earlier inflorescence arrest by accelerating the rate at which the inflorescence meristem (IM) initiates floral primordia. Specifically, we show that plants arrest at a photo-thermal threshold and demonstrate that this photo-thermally mediated arrest is mediated by the floral integrator FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT), a known activator of flowering. FT expression increased over the duration of flowering, peaking during IM arrest, and we show that this is necessary and sufficient for photo-thermally induced arrest. Our data demonstrate the role of light and temperature, through FT, as key regulators of end-of-flowering. Overall, our results have important implications for understanding and modulating the flowering duration of crop species in changing light and temperature conditions in a warming global climate.
If you are interested in my research and would like to discuss about science, get in touch!