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Abstract

The dramatic advances in our understanding of the molecular biology and biochemistry of jasmonate (JA) signaling has been the subject of several excellent recent reviews that highlight the phytohormonal function of this signaling pathway. Here we focus on the responses mediated by JA signaling which have consequences for a plant's Darwinian fitness: the organismic‐level function of JA signaling. The most diverse module in the signaling cascade, the JAZ proteins, and their interactions with other proteins and transcription factors, allow this canonical signaling cascade to mediate a bewildering array of traits in different tissues at different times; the functional coherence of these diverse responses are best appreciated in an organismal/ecological context. From published work, it appears that jasmonates can function as a “Swiss Army knife” of plant signaling, mediating many different biotic and abiotic stress and developmental responses that allow plants to contextualize their responses to their frequently changing local environments and optimize their fitness. We propose that a deeper analysis of the natural variation in both within‐plant and within‐population JA signaling components is a profitable means of attaining a coherent whole‐plant functional perspective of this signaling cascade, and provide examples from the Nicotiana attenuata system of this approach.