Plants Are Better Engineers: the Complexity of Plant Organ Morphogenesis

Plant are better engineers than us. They reproducibly create new organs while we are still far from being able to engineer plant morphogenesis. It is challenging to understand plant morphogenesis due to its complexity. Complex intersecting regulatory networks often mask general principles. Cells and molecular regulators typically behave variably yet the plant uses these inputs to achieve robust outcomes. Regulatory networks often act in the non-linear range near tipping points such that small stochastic variations are used to make important developmental decisions. With the recent employment of 4D growth tracking combined with quantitative analysis of regulatory networks and computational modeling, we now have better capacity to explore and embrace the complexity of plant organ morphogenesis.