Plasticity and invariance of Arabidopsis inflorescence and floral shoot apical meristems in response to mineral nutrients

Abstract

In many species, floral organ production is invariant while flower production rate can be plastic. This allows plants to adapt flower number to their environment whilst maintaining a constant flower structure. The CLAVATA/WUSCHEL feedback loop underpins both inflorescence (IM) and floral meristem (FM) activity, respectively responsible for flower and floral organ production. We explore how plasticity and invariance can differ between IM and FM in response to nutrient availability. FM size is less sensitive to changes in nutrients than IM size, and floral organ production is insensitive to these small size changes. However, clavata3 mutants display larger changes in FM size, approaching those observed in WT IM under nutrient change, with increased floral organ number. This suggests that invariant floral organ production requires that FM size undergoes limited changes in response to nutrients. Compared to the IM, in the FM, levels of cytokinin (CK) signaling are lower and CK signaling and WUSCHEL expression are less impacted by nutrient level. Through genetic perturbations, we show a reduced response of FMs to varying cytokinin levels. Our work shows one way that the balance between plasticity and invariance can be set differently in different contexts.