hormonal-crosstalk
Hormonal crosstalk refers to the complex interactions and signaling networks through which different plant hormones — such as auxins, gibberellins, cytokinins, abscisic acid, and ethylene — coordinate and modulate each other's effects. Rather than acting in isolation, these hormones converge on shared regulatory nodes to fine-tune responses to developmental cues and environmental stresses. Understanding these interactions is essential for plant science, as it reveals how plants integrate multiple signals to control growth, defense, flowering, and adaptation with remarkable precision.
open_in_new WikipediaPubMed · 2026-04-25
Scientists have mapped out how plants use a complex network of eight plant hormones to survive flooding, and propose using this knowledge to engineer flood-tolerant crops — a critical need as climate change brings more frequent and severe waterlogging events.
Eight major plant hormones — including ethylene, auxin, gibberellin, and abscisic acid — interact in synergistic and antagonistic ways to coordinate waterlogging survival, but how exactly they 'talk' to each other is still poorly understood.
The review introduces a new concept called 'stress-metabolic integration and hormonal allocation,' proposing that oxygen levels, carbon availability, and hormone signals are quantitatively combined to determine whether a cell survives or dies during flooding.
Combining targeted hormonal treatments with specific agronomic practices (such as field management strategies) can measurably improve crop waterlogging tolerance under real farming conditions.