One hundred important questions facing plant science: an international perspective

Abstract

The 'One Hundred Important Questions Facing Plant Science Research' project aimed to capture a global snapshot of the current issues and future questions facing plant science. This revisiting builds on the original 2011 paper. Over 600 questions were collected from anyone interested in plants, which were reduced to a final list of 100 by four teams of global panellists. There was remarkable consensus on the most important topics between the global subpanels. We present the top 100 most important questions facing plant science in 2022, ranging from how plants can contribute to tackling climate change, to plant-defence priming and epigenome plasticity. We also provide explanations of why each question is important. We demonstrate how focussing on climate change, community and protecting plant life has become increasingly important for plant science over the past 11 years. This revisiting illustrates the collaborative and international need for long-term funding of plant science research, alongside the broad community-driven efforts to actively ameliorate and halt climate change, while adapting to its consequences.

One hundred important questions for plant science – reflecting on a decade of plant research

“…A new iteration of the 100 Questions project has just been completed (Armstrong et al, 2023) that includes some quantitative comparisons with our original questions. Both the BBSRC (Langdale, 2021) and ASPB (Henkhaus, 2020) recently published decadal visions for plant science, confirming the need for strategic investment in plant science.…”

“…Looking back as well as forward can illuminate the trajectory of our field. It also provides context for a new paper identifying the current most important 100 questions in plant science research (Armstrong et al, 2023).…”

Alison Smith

“…A particularly impressive example is that by Armstrong et al . (2023), ‘One hundred important questions facing plant science: an international perspective’ a real call‐to‐arms for all readers of the journal.…”

An investigation into the potential for upward range expansion in high‐montane species on the roof of the world

“…Determining the potential for upward migration is a pressing concern; a recent synthesis of the 100 most urgent questions in plant science included how climate change will affect the ability of plants to grow outside their normal habitat range (Armstrong et al . 2023).…”