Physiological, biochemical, and metabolic responses of abiotic plant stress: salinity and drought

Abstract

The most important types of abiotic stress that affect agricultural crops throughout the world, are drought and salinity. These stresses will continue to worsen as the current climate crisis progresses. Plants have evolved a complex set of mechanisms in order to protect themselves from salt and drought. At the macrobiological level, these include alterations in growth rate, water balance, antioxidant defenses, and photosynthesis. Altered metabolites include proline, carbohydrates, glycine betaine, gamma-aminobutyric acid, and polyamines. It is not surprising, thus, that one of the most important research areas of plant biology is the study of plant responses to abiotic stress and stress tolerance mechanisms. The methods, used in this study, are diverse, including the study of physiological properties, and biochemical research, and metabolomics approaches toward abiotic stress. This awareness 2 should lead to the development of (near) future, sustainable and better-adapted agriculture in the sense of global warming and environmental emission scenarios. Also, different information presented in this overview can be regarded by the scientific community to produce tolerant cultivars in response to salinity and drought stresses.

Lack of Tradeoff between Leaf Hydraulic Efficiency and Safety across Six Contrasting Water-Stress Tolerant Fruit Tree Species

“…Efficiency and hydraulic safety in species of agricultural interests have been limited to model species like grapevine [30], and less frequently in species like olive [31], but the study of those mechanisms should help to advance the identification of relevant physiological targets in the research of plant material more tolerant of and resilient to dryer conditions [32]. Furthermore, selected traits of water stress tolerance could be candidates for other abiotic stressors that have similar or common response mechanisms, like salinity stress [33,34]. Salinity is widely extensive as a stress factor in agricultural soils interacting with drought stress under a climate change scenario [35,36].…”