Bryotherm - Thermomorphogenesis as a mechanism to adapt to elevated temperatures in early land plant evolution

植物在其生命周期中必须忍受的最低和最高环境温度之间的幅度在陆地环境中比在水生环境中要大得多。因此，特别是升高的环境温度是植物成功地在陆地上定居所必须应对的最重要的非生物因素之一。众所周知，陆地植物的表型可塑性使它们能够调整茎结构以适应和适应升高的温度。这种机制，即热形态发生，是如何以及何时产生的，目前尚不清楚。同样，我们也不知道苔藓植物是否具有温度形态发生作用，它们的身体结构可能与最早的陆生植物非常相似。因此，在本项目中，我们将从形态学和生理水平上表征苔藓植物（小壶藓和多形地藓）对高温的响应，包括阐明温度敏感信号级联。除了比较分析外，我们还将采用无偏倚的方法，主要使用地茅多态地茅。为了识别信号和响应模块，我们将生成高密度转录组学和磷酸化蛋白质组学数据集，并使用它们构建基于机器学习方法的基因调控网络。因此，我们的目标是在这个项目中结合形态学和分子数据，以更好地了解苔藓植物如何应对升高的环境温度。有了这些知识。然后，我们可能能够设计实验，直接解决这些机制的出现及其在植物陆地化过程中的作用。

The amplitude between the minimum and the maximum ambient temperature a plant has to endure during its life cycle is much larger in terrestrial than in aquatic environments. As such, especially elevated ambient temperatures are among the most prominent abiotic factors plants had to cope with to successfully colonize land. It is known that the phenotypic plasticity in eudicot land plants allows them to adjust shoot architecture to acclimate and adapt to elevated temperatures. How and when this mechanism, thermomorphogenesis, has originated is unknown. Likewise, we do not know whether bryophytes, whose body plans is probably very similar to that of the first terrestrial plants, perform thermomorphogenesis. In this project, we will therefore characterize the response of bryophytes (Physcomitrella patens and Marchantia polymorpha) to elevated temperatures on both the morphological as well as the physiological level, including elucidation of temperature sensitive signaling cascades. In addition to comparative analyses we will also follow an unbiased approach, primarily using the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha. To identify signaling and response modules, we will generate high density transcriptomic and phosphoproteomic datasets and use them to construct gene regulatory networks based on machine learning approaches. As such, we aim to combine morphological and molecular data in this project to better understand how bryophytes cope with elevated ambient temperatures. With this knowledge. we might then be in a position to design experiments that directly address the emergence of such mechanisms and their role during the terrestrialization of land by plants.