We also analyzed metabolites, the chemical toolkit of the plant.
In stress mode, plants shifted strategy:
🔄 Less energy for growth
🛡️ More for defense
Like stocking up on helmets instead of perfume.

We measured:
🕷️ Leaf damage from mites
💨 Water loss
📉 Gas exchange & photosynthesis (How well the plants "breathed"?)
🧪 Hormone levels
⚗️ Metabolites — tiny internal chemicals that act like shields or SOS signals

This time, we raised the stakes.
🔥 Heat
💧 Drought
🕷️ Spider mites
Applied separately… and all together.
We wanted to mimic real-world farming stress.

We let the spider mites on the plants and measured the damage. Plants lacking JA defenses suffered the most, confirming its key role against pests..
But ABA and SA mutants also showed more damage.

We started in the lab with Arabidopsis, a tiny plant with big insights. We used 20 mutant lines, each missing one or more hormone signals, to test how they responded to spider mite attacks.

Meet the three hormone heroes of my research:
💧 ABA (abscisic acid) – helps retain water during drought
🕷️ JA (jasmonic acid) – defends against pests
🛡️ SA (salicylic acid) – boosts immunity and balances stress
But here’s the twist: these signals don’t always get along.

With climate change, crops face more heatwaves and drought. But it doesn’t stop there…
Pests like the two-spotted spider mite are thriving in warm conditions, damaging crops and reducing yields.
Tiny. Deadly. A true plant vampire. 🕷️

☀️💧🕷️ Heat. Drought. Pests.
Now imagine facing all of them without moving, drinking, or asking for help. That’s what plants deal with. Welcome to my PhD project on helping plants survive extreme stress by decoding their inner “conversation.” @uji.es #HiloTesis