Plants constantly monitor their environment using an array of red, blue, and UV light photoreceptors. With this information, plants keep track of both neighbours and time, both daily and seasonal. As a result, plants are capable of flowering at a certain season, evade the competence of plant neighbours by avoding shade, or can acclimate more efficiently to cold when autumn is approaching. Our lab studies how plants integrate signals from light, temperature, and the circadian clock to regulate key developmental programs, such as flowering and shade avoidance. We aim to understand how plants integrate environmental information to shape their growth and initiate developmental transitions.

We use Arabidopsis thaliana as model, due to its power for genetic approaches. We use Editing tools to mutagenize specific loci or mutagenesis to identify novel mutants in forward genetic screens. Novel mutants allow as to inquire about protein function and regulatory pathways that lead to flowering and shace avoidance.
Do to its essential role in transcription, the Mediator complex is emerging as a hub for signal integration, with capacity to interact with both transcription factors and hormone signaling components. Therefore, we are also focusing our research on the role of the Mediator complex in flowering and shace avoidance responses
With the experience gained in Arabidopsis research, we developed lines of alfalfa with delayed flowering. As flowering leads to a loss in forage quality, later flowering mantains quality for longer periods of time, allowing alfalfa growers to improve both forage quality and management.