Strategies of plants to overcome abiotic and biotic stresses

Abstract

In their environment, plants are exposed to a multitude of abiotic and biotic stresses that differ in intensity, duration and severity. As sessile organisms, they cannot escape these stresses, but instead have developed strategies to overcome them or to compensate for the consequences of stress exposure. Defence can take place at different levels and the mechanisms involved are thought to differ in efficiency across these levels. To minimise metabolic constraints and to reduce the costs of stress defence, plants prioritise first‐line defence strategies in the apoplastic space, involving ascorbate, defensins and small peptides, as well as secondary metabolites, before cellular processes are affected. In addition, a large number of different symplastic mechanisms also provide efficient stress defence, including chemical antioxidants, antioxidative enzymes, secondary metabolites, defensins and other peptides as well as proteins. At both the symplastic and the apoplastic level of stress defence and compensation, a number of specialised transporters are thought to be involved in exchange across membranes that still have not been identified, and information on the regeneration of different defence compounds remains ambiguous. In addition, strategies to overcome and compensate for stress exposure operate not only at the cellular, but also at the organ and whole‐plant levels, including stomatal regulation, and hypersensitive and systemic responses to prevent or reduce the spread of stress impacts within the plant. Defence can also take place at the ecosystem level by root exudation of signalling molecules and the emission of volatile organic compounds, either directly or indirectly into the rhizosphere and/or the aboveground atmosphere. The mechanisms by which plants control the production of these compounds and that mediate perception of stressful conditions are still not fully understood. Here we summarise plant defence strategies from the cellular to ecosystem level, discuss their advantages and disadvantages for plant growth and development, elucidate the current state of research on the transport and regeneration capacity of defence metabolites, and outline insufficiently explored questions for further investigation.

An insight into the roles of ubiquitin-specific proteases in plants: development and growth, morphogenesis, and stress response

“…Plant stress refers to the state in which plants grow under non-optimal conditions; it may lead to deficient growth, reduced crop yield, permanent damage, or death if the stress exceeds plant tolerance ( Zhang et al., 2022 ; Du et al., 2024 ). Plant stress factors are categorized into two main types: abiotic and biotic.…”

Water deprivation modifies the metabolic profile of lavender (Lavandula angustifolia Mill.) leaves

“…The figure shows the importance of metabolites determining components 1 (A) and 2 (B) in PLS-DA analyses. The color code indicates the relative abundance of metabolites in L. angustifolia leaves collected at three and seven days after water deprivation (3DAW and 7DAW), and three and ten days after re-watering (3DAR and 10DAR), respectively (n = 6 individual plants) (Miller et al 2010;Foyer et al 2020;Du et al 2024(McDowell 2011;Caretto et al 2015;Rehman et al 2016;Gupta et al 2020).…”