Plant mineral nutrient sensing and signaling

As terrestrial plants are sessile organisms and therefore must directly deal with an often complex and changing environment,they have had to develop complex and elegant strategies to survive and thrive in the face of environmental stress.This is particularly true for plant adaptation to the soil environment,where essential mineral nutrients often are found at suboptimal levels and their concentrations can vary significantly,both spatially and temporally.Furthermore,plants also at times have to respond to excessively high and potentially toxic levels of essential nutrients,as well as toxic levels of nonessential metals and metalloids in the soil.Although plant mineral nutrition as a bona fide research discipline has a history of over 150 years,beginning with the pioneering work of Justus Von Liebieg and others in the mid‐1800’s,it is only very recently that researchers have begun to truly appreciate how sophisticated plants are with regards to the sensing of their mineral status and the maintaining of mineral homeostasis in