Drought Stress Responses: Coping Strategy and Resistance

Abstract

Plants’ resistance to stress factors is a complex trait that is a result of changes at the molecular, metabolic, and physiological levels. The plant resistance strategy means the ability to survive, recover, and reproduce under adverse conditions. Harmful environmental factors affect the state of stress in plant tissues, which creates a signal triggering metabolic events responsible for resistance, including avoidance and/or tolerance mechanisms. Unfortunately, the term ‘stress resistance’ is often used in the literature interchangeably with ‘stress tolerance’. This paper highlights the differences between the terms ‘stress tolerance’ and ‘stress resistance’, based on the results of experiments focused on plants’ responses to drought. The ability to avoid or tolerate dehydration is crucial in the resistance to drought at cellular and tissue levels (biological resistance). However, it is not necessarily crucial in crop resistance to drought if we take into account agronomic criteria (agricultural resistance). For the plant user (farmer, grower), resistance to stress means not only the ability to cope with a stress factor, but also the achievement of a stable yield and good quality. Therefore, it is important to recognize both particular plant coping strategies (stress avoidance, stress tolerance) and their influence on the resistance, assessed using well-defined criteria.

Responses of Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) Breeding Lines to Osmotic Stress Induced in In Vitro Shoot Culture

“…The underground part of the plant (the root system), in addition to providing a site for fixation and water and nutrient uptake, plays a significant role in evolving abiotic stress responses [17,53]. Prolonged drought can induce adaptive responses in plants, and it can be manifested by modified structure and function of roots [53], which can play an important role in coping with water stress [19,35,55].…”

“…This fact suggests that there may be large differences between species and cultivars in drought stress responses, and even variability has been found in the susceptibility of potato cultivars [15,16]. Several experiments were performed to identify traits that could be related to drought stress and to select genotypes with the desired characters in several crops [4,17] including potatoes [18][19][20]. Some of these traits can also be detected at the cellular and/or tissue level, such as the adjustment of osmotic pressure, which can be tested/modelled under laboratory conditions [21] or even in vitro [22,23].…”

Improving Drought Stress Tolerance in Ramie (Boehmeria nivea L.) Using Molecular Techniques

“…Drought stress (DS) is the worst environmental factor around the globe and severely affects crop yield ( Anjum et al, 2011 ; Alharby and Fahad, 2020 ; Seleiman et al, 2021 ; Yahaya and Shimelis, 2022 ). DS is an inevitable abiotic aspect in numerous ecological areas, severely declining crop yield and quality without warning before its onset ( Seleiman et al, 2021 ; Bandurska, 2022 ). Low rainfall, temperature, and light intensity contribute to drought incidents ( Zia et al, 2021 ).…”

Hydraulic Trait Variation with Tree Height Affects Fruit Quality of Walnut Trees under Drought Stress

“…Tree photosynthesis is very sensitive to water deficit [26,27], which directly affects fruit development and final yield [13,28]. To reduce water loss during periods of drought, plants often first down-regulate stomatal conductance (gs) and then may increase osmotic adjustments to facilitate water absorption in drier soils [29][30][31][32][33]. For example, studies on pear-jujube (Zizyphus jujuba M. cv.…”

“…Chemlali) showed that water deficit decreased leaf net photosynthetic rate (Pn) slightly but significantly reduced the transpiration rate (Tr), thus resulting in significant improvements in leaf water use efficiency and indicating that fruit trees can adapt to a certain degree of water stress by controlling stomatal aperture [13,34,35]. Prolonged drought has significant negative impacts on the uptake, transport and metabolism of various nutrients, minimizing leaf area, altering the partitioning of assimilates among different plant organs and reducing yield [29,36]. However, the extent to which fruit trees can adjust and acclimate to drought, increasing water use efficiency to save water and maintain steady yield, varies with species.…”