Abstract
Despite the enormous volume of literature relating to plant responses to drought, there is still much work to be done to fully unravel the impact of a range of possibly interacting processes on plant physiology during drought. This review highlights some of the key processes. Some aspects of plant physiological response to drought can actually be beneficial in agronomy, if exploited correctly. It is also clear that substantial genetic variation in response to drought exists within many species. Exploiting such variation in conventional breeding has led to the release of drought-tolerant varieties. Increasing demand for food and other plant-based products coupled with increasing frequency and distribution of drought means that more rapid development of suitable varieties is now required. Understanding the genetic basis of drought tolerance is therefore essential, and the explosion in genomic data for a wide range of plant species is currently being harnessed in enhancing genetic improvement programmes.
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Abbreviations
- A:
-
Assimilation rate
- ABA:
-
Abscisic acid
- AQP:
-
Aquaporin
- APX:
-
Ascorbate peroxidase
- AsA:
-
Ascorbic acid
- CAT:
-
Catalase
- δ13C:
-
Carbon isotope composition
- DHA:
-
Dehydroascorbate
- DHAR:
-
Dehydroascorbate reductase
- E:
-
Evapotranspiration rate
- EST:
-
Expressed sequence tag
- GPX:
-
Glutathione peroxidase
- GR:
-
Glutathione reductase
- g s :
-
Stomatal conductance
- GSH:
-
Glutathione
- MDA:
-
Monohydroascorbate
- MDAR:
-
Monohydroascorbate reductase
- MTX:
-
Methotrexate
- p a :
-
Partial pressure of CO2 in the air
- PEG:
-
Polyethylene glycol
- p i :
-
Intercellular partial pressure of CO2
- PIP:
-
Plasma membrane intrinsic protein
- PLD:
-
Phospholipase D
- POD:
-
Guaicol peroxidase
- PRI:
-
Photochemical reflectance index
- PSI:
-
Photosystem I
- PSII:
-
Photosystem II
- QTL:
-
Quantitative trait loci
- RFLP:
-
Restriction fragment length polymorphism
- ROS:
-
Reactive oxygen species
- SOD:
-
Superoxide dismutase
- TIP:
-
Tonoplast intrinsic protein
- WUE:
-
Water use efficiency
- WUE i :
-
Instantaneous water use efficiency.
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Acknowledgements
The author is funded by Marie Curie IEF grant 252196, “IMaging of Plant Responses to Environmental StresS” (IMPRESS). Advice from Nada Šurbanovski and Phil Dix on the sections on aquaporins and reactive oxygen species, respectively, is gratefully acknowledged.
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Grant, O.M. (2012). Understanding and Exploiting the Impact of Drought Stress on Plant Physiology. In: Ahmad, P., Prasad, M. (eds) Abiotic Stress Responses in Plants. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0634-1_5
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