The evolving role of abscisic acid in cell function and plant development over geological time

Abscisic acid (ABA) is found in a wide diversity of organisms, yet we know most about the hormonal action of this compound in the ecologically dominant and economically important angiosperms. In angiosperms, ABA regulates a suite of critical responses from desiccation tolerance through to seed dormancy and stomatal closure. Work exploring the function of key genes in the ABA signalling pathway of angiosperms has revealed that this signal transduction pathway is ancient, yet considerable change in the physiological roles of this hormone have occurred over geological time. With recent advances in our capacity to characterise gene function in non-angiosperms we are on the cusp of revealing the origins of this critical hormonal signalling pathway in plants, and understanding how a simple hormone may have shaped land plant diversity, ecology and adaptation over the past 500 million years.