Abstract

Calcium ions (Ca²⁺), as crucial second messengers in plant cells, play a central role in growth, development, metabolic regulation, and stress responses. Systematic analysis of calcium-related genes and signaling pathways is fundamental to understanding calcium regulatory mechanisms and enhancing crop stress resistance. In recent years, with the rapid accumulation of multi-omics data—including genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics—the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in plant molecular network analysis has advanced significantly, providing new insights for identifying complex signaling pathways and optimizing metabolic networks. This review summarizes recent progress in AI-based identification of calcium-related genes and modeling of signaling pathways, with a particular focus on the application of algorithms such as graph neural networks, convolutional neural networks, and random forests in constructing calcium signaling networks and mining key gene modules. Moreover, it discusses the potential of AI in reconstructing calcium-regulated metabolic dynamics, elucidating stress-responsive signaling patterns, and improving calcium use efficiency and metabolic homeostasis in crops. Finally, the challenges of data integration, algorithm interpretability, and cross-scale modeling are analyzed, and the future directions of AI-driven calcium signaling research in precision agriculture and intelligent breeding are outlined. This review aims to provide a systematic theoretical reference and technical framework for plant calcium signaling studies and crop metabolic optimization.

Keywords

artificial intelligence in plant biology, calcium signaling pathway, calcium-related genes, graph neural network, crop stress resistance, multi-omics integration, metabolic network modeling, precision agriculture

Citation

Jia F, Wang M. The research progress on the application of artificial intelligence in the identification of plant calcium-related genes and the regulation of signaling pathways. Engineering Innovation and Practice, 2026, 2, eip2v0118a. 

Author information 

Fengchen Jia: Beishan Agricultural Research Institute, Yantai City

Meihong Wang: Beishan Agricultural Research Institute, Yantai City

Publication History 

Received: 2025-10-12; Revised: 2026-01-06; Accepted: 2026-01-16

Abstract

Against the backdrop of global climate change and the “dual carbon” targets, greenhouse gas emissions from paddy fields in the black soil region have increased markedly, highlighting an urgent need to develop green production modes that integrate water saving, carbon sequestration, and emission reduction. This study aimed to elucidate the regulatory effects and underlying mechanisms of water-saving irrigation and material return on greenhouse gas emissions from paddy fields through controlled field experiments combining different irrigation regimes with biochar and organic fertilizer return, and to systematically quantify their impacts on methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide emissions, soil organic carbon accumulation, and rice yield formation. The results showed that water-saving irrigation effectively suppressed anaerobic methane production by improving the soil redox environment in paddy fields, whereas the concomitant enhancement of aerobic processes led to a certain increase in carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions; biochar and organic fertilizer exhibited differentiated regulatory effects on the emission pathways of the three greenhouse gases, with biochar showing the most pronounced advantages in reducing net greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing soil carbon sequestration, while organic fertilizer was more conducive to increasing rice yield. Overall, the combined application of water-saving irrigation and biochar return simultaneously achieved carbon sequestration, emission reduction, and yield enhancement, significantly lowering net greenhouse gas emissions from paddy fields, thereby providing a scientific basis for establishing an integrated “water saving–yield increase–carbon sequestration and emission reduction” management mode in paddy fields of the black soil region and offering important insights for regional agricultural green transformation and sustainable development.

Keywords

water-saving irrigation, greenhouse gas emissions, paddy field carbon sequestration, biochar application, rice yield response, black soil region paddy fields

Citation

Sun H, Wang J, Dong X. Mechanisms of water-saving irrigation and material return in regulating net greenhouse gas emissions from paddy fields in the black soil region. Engineering Innovation and Practice, 2026, 2, eip2v0125a.

Author information

Huishan Sun: Northeast Institute of Agroecology

Jiali Wang: Northeast Institute of Agroecology

Xiaofeng Dong: Northeast Institute of Agroecology

Publication History

Received: 2025-10-18; Revised: 2026-01-08; Accepted: 2026-01-23