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Lipids perform a remarkable range of functions in plants, extending far beyond their classical roles as membrane constituents and storage reserves. They participate in developmental regulation, cellular organization, stress perception and response, mechanical barrier formation, carbon and energy storage, and the integration of metabolism with environmental and ecological cues. Recent advances in analytical, imaging, and computational approaches have accelerated progress in understanding how lipid diversity, spatial organization, and dynamic remodeling contribute to plant performance under changing conditions. This Special Issue brings together perspectives that span fundamental mechanisms to applied contexts, highlighting how plant lipid research is informing strategies relevant to agricultural productivity, food security, environmental resilience, and sustainable use of biological resources.
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Resolving the Rules of Robustness and Resilience in Biology Across Scales
Abstract Why do some biological systems and communities persist while others fail? Robustness, a system's stability, and resilience, the ability to return to a stable state, are key concepts that span multiple disciplines within and outside the biological sciences. Discovering and applying common rules that govern the robustness and resilience of biological systems is a critical step toward creating solutions for species survival in the face of climate change, as well as the for the ever-increasing need for food, health, and energy for human populations. We propose that network theory provides a framework for universal scalable mathematical models to describe robustness and resilience and the relationship between them, and hypothesize that resilience at lower organization levels contribute to robust systems. Insightful models of biological systems can be generated by quantifying the mechanisms of redundancy, diversity, and connectivity of networks, from biochemical processes to ecosystems. These models provide pathways towards understanding how evolvability can both contribute to and result from robustness and resilience under dynamic conditions. We now have an abundance of data from model and non-model systems and the technological and computational advances for studying complex systems. Several conceptual and policy advances will allow the research community to elucidate the rules of robustness and resilience. Conceptually, a common language and data structure that can be applied across levels of biological organization needs to be developed. Policy advances such as cross-disciplinary funding mechanisms, access to affordable computational capacity, and the integration of network theory and computer science within the standard biological science curriculum will provide the needed research environments. This new understanding of biological systems will allow us to derive ever more useful forecasts of biological behaviors and revolutionize the engineering of biological systems that can survive changing environments or disease, navigate the deepest oceans, or sustain life throughout the solar system.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1754474
- PAR ID:
- 10326625
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Integrative and Comparative Biology
- Volume:
- 61
- Issue:
- 6
- ISSN:
- 1540-7063
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 2163 to 2179
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icab183
