Plasticity comparisons between plants and animals: Concepts and mechanisms

This review attempts to present an integrated update of the issue of comparisons of phenotypic plasticity between plants and animals by presenting the problem and its integrated solutions via a whole-organism perspective within an evolutionary framework. Plants and animals differ in two important aspects: mobility and longevity. These features can have important implications for plasticity, and plasticity may even have facilitated greater longevity in plants. Furthermore, somatic genetic mosaicism, intra-organismal selection, and genomic instability contribute to the maintenance of an adaptive phenotype that is especially relevant to long-lived plants. It is contended that a cross-kingdom phylogenetic examination of sensors, messengers and responses that constitute the plasticity repertoire would be more useful than dichotomizing the plant and animal kingdoms. Furthermore, physicochemical factors must be viewed cohesively in the signal reception and transduction pathways leading to plastic responses. Comparison of unitary versus modular organisms could also provide useful insights into the range of expected plastic responses. An integrated approach that combines evolutionary theory and evolutionary history with signal-response mechanisms will yield the most insights into phenotypic plasticity in all its forms.