PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Carla Ibañez AU - Yvonne Poeschl AU - Tom Peterson AU - Julia Bellstädt AU - Kathrin Denk AU - Andreas Gogol-Döring AU - Marcel Quint AU - Carolin Delker TI - Developmental plasticity of <em>Arabidopsis thaliana</em> accessions across an ambient temperature range AID - 10.1101/017285 DP - 2015 Jan 01 TA - bioRxiv PG - 017285 4099 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/03/30/017285.short 4100 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/03/30/017285.full AB - The global increase in ambient temperature constitutes a significant challenge to wild and cultivated plant species. Yet, a comprehensive knowledge on morphological responses and molecular mechanisms involved is scarce. Studies published to date have largely focused on a few, isolated temperature-relevant phenotypes such as flowering time or hypocotyl elongation. To systematically describe thermomorphogenesis, we profiled more than 30 phenotypic traits throughout an entire life cycle in ten distinct accessions of Arabidopsis thaliana grown in four different ambient temperatures. We observed a uniform acceleration of developmental timing in the vegetative growth phase with a low contribution of genotype effects on variation indicating a passive effect of temperature. In contrast, reproduction-associated phenotypes and several quantitative growth traits were sensitive to both, genotype and temperature effects or could be attributed primarily to either factor. Therefore, the results argue against a general mechanism of passive temperature effects by thermodynamic processes. Temperature responses of several phenotypes rather implicate differential function of specific signaling components that might be targets of adaptation to specific environmental conditions.