Abiotic stress such as drought cause significant crop losses by reducing photosynthetic efficiency, growth and yield. Key to limiting crop losses in harsh and variable climates is an understanding about how cells perceive and communicate environmental perturbations. Chloroplasts, the site of photosynthesis, can be viewed as an environmental sensor for the cell. How do they communicate their status to the rest of the cell via a process known as retrograde signaling. How does the plant respond and has this varied across evolutionary time scales? Our strategy has spanned from the lab to the field and from gene to signal to whole plant, alongside a consideration of evolutionary drivers and consequences. The seminar will cover our discoveries related to novel developmental and stress related signals between the chloroplast, nucleus and protein translation machinery, with particular reference to signaling pathways related to communication regulating cytosolic translation.