Temperature regulation in plants: From molecular mechanisms to climate-resilient crop improvement

Temperature is a fundamental environmental determinant of plant growth, development, reproduction, and yield, and increasing thermal variability poses a major threat to global food security. Plants have evolved multilayered thermosensory systems that perceive cold and heat, and convert these cues into coordinated physiological, molecular, and developmental responses through interconnected regulatory networks operating across cellular and chromatin levels. Beyond stress adaptation, temperature also controls key developmental programs. Thermomorphogenesis confers architectural plasticity under moderately elevated temperatures through the integrated actions of hormones, light signaling, the circadian clock, and chromatin remodeling. Temperature-sensitive genic male sterility links RNA metabolism, translational fidelity, and protein quality control to reproductive thermosensitivity, providing the genetic basis of two-line hybrid breeding systems. Vernalization represents a temperature-encoded epigenetic memory, in which prolonged cold establishes stable chromatin states that repress FLC in Arabidopsis and activate VRN1 in cereals, ensuring seasonal flowering competence while requiring resetting in the next generation. This review summarizes recent advances in temperature perception, signaling, regulatory networks, and epigenetic memory, and discusses how natural variation, genome editing, and AI-assisted prediction can accelerate molecular design breeding for climate-resilient crops.