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Abstract

The transition from vegetative to reproductive development, or floral transition, is a crucial event in the life cycle of plants. Work carried out over the last decades has shown how environmental signals, such as seasonal changes in the day length and temperature, are perceived and accurately integrated into genetically defined pathways to properly time the induction of flowering. In addition to seasonal fluctuations, plants must cope with a vast array of often stressful conditions that greatly affect metabolism and physiology. In this context, plant hormones and sugars have emerged as important endogenous signalling molecules mediating the transition to the reproductive phase. In this chapter we report the recent advances in understanding the molecular basis underlying the transition to flowering in response to these endogenous signals.