How do circadian rhythms shape the responses of plants to climate change?

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Living organisms can tell the time. This is because they contain circadian clocks, which produce a cellular measure of the time of day. In plants including crops, circadian rhythms are of crucial importance because they impact growth rates, metabolism, developmental programmes and stress tolerance. Therefore, circadian regulation has an incredibly pervasive influence upon plant life that affects crop performance. We need to know how circadian rhythms adapt plants to their naturally fluctuating environments, to take advantage of the incredible recent progress in understanding the molecular structure of circadian clocks. We do not know how environmental alterations that are being caused by climate change will affect the important contribution that circadian regulation makes to plant performance in nature.This project will contribute to these major questions by investigating how future climate scenarios affect plant physiology and development through their effects upon circadian regulation. The novel biological insights from this project will help to better understand how plants respond and adapt to changes in temperature, and contribute to the future development of crops that are more resilient to climate change.