Shaping Plant Adaptation in a Warmer World: Developmental Plasticity Under Moderately Elevated Temperatures

As global warming raises ambient temperatures, plant growth and productivity are being profoundly affected. Although the impacts of extreme heat stress have received extensive attention, the developmental consequences of moderately elevated temperatures remain less understood. As sessile organisms, plants rely on developmental plasticity to adjust their growth and development in response to warm environments. Understanding how plants sense temperature and convert this signal into developmental outputs is crucial for determining their adaptive strategies to climate change and for applying this knowledge to breed climate-resilient crops. Here, we review current advances in understanding how moderately elevated temperatures regulate developmental plasticity throughout the plant life cycle, including the perception of moderate warmth, the resulting developmental plasticity during vegetative and reproductive growth, and the coordination and trade-offs between these two phases. We also highlight major unanswered questions in this field and propose strategies for manipulating developmental plasticity to breed climate-resilient crops.