Stress Biology - Call for Papers --- Special Issue "Plant immunity and microbiota"

Plants are not alone - as human beings accommodate gut microflora in the intestine, they accommodate a microbial community in and on the surface of their tissues and yet ensure their physiological fitness under natural conditions. The community composed of plant-associated microbes, collectively called the plant microbiota, exhibits an immense influence on plant growth and stress responses, and is recognized as an integral part of plant physiology.

Despite our increasing amount of knowledge about who they are, i.e., the taxonomic compositions of plant microbiota from different plant species under different soil and climate conditions, it remains poorly understood how they interact, namely the molecular mechanisms by which plants and associated microbiota communicate and establish the mutual relationship. Past studies have sporadically suggested a crucial role for plant immunity in plant-microbiota interaction, as is in plant-pathogen interactions; however, our understanding of its molecular processes is overly far from complete. In addition, plant microbiota functions the second layer of the plant immune system and directly contributes to pathogen control. Due to the fact that the plant-microbiota interaction is about plants interacting with a taxonomically and functionally diverse set of microbes, here, a community-wide effort to integrate a wide range of insights from multiple perspectives is essential.

This special issue aims to collect and integrate studies focusing on plant-microbiota interactions and their regulation by plant immunity to address the questions including but not limited to:

- How does plant immunity regulate microbiota community compositions and function?

- How does plant-associated microbiota affect plant immunity?

- How does plant-associated microbiota overcome plant immunity?

- How does plant-associated microbiota directly regulate pathogens?

- How does plant immunity distinguish pathogenic and commensal/beneficial microbes?

- How do plants coordinate growth and immunity in the presence of plant microbiota?

Original research papers, reviews, and short communications can be submitted to the special issue. There is no publication fee for all accepted articles. The journal follows the peer review policy (this opens in a new tab) of Stress Biology for all the special issue submissions.

Guest editor: Kenichi Tsuda, Professor at Huazhong Agricultural University, China, tsuda@mail.hzau.edu.cn

Co-guest editor: Ryohei Thomas Nakano, Professor at Hokkaido University, Japan, rtnakano@sci.hokudai.ac.jp

Submission deadline: 30 July 2024