Collection

Special Issue: Unravelling the Mechanisms of Stress Response in Crop Plants

Submission status: Closed

Environmental conditions are drastically changing, which has a bearing on the global climate change impact, and this is posing new problems to all living creatures including the plant kingdom. As a result, the domains of atmosphere, edaphic, biotic and abiotic impediments are expanding. All these components influence the distribution of natural and man-made vegetation, their survival and propagation.

In agricultural systems, even if conditions tend to be optimized, the effect of abiotic and biotic stresses resulting from changes in the physico-chemical environment is reflected at quantitative and qualitative levels. Thus, there are multiple challenges which affect crop production, including various abiotic stresses (such as high irradiance, salt, drought, flooding, metal toxicity, etc) and biotic stresses (weeds, plant pathogens, etc). Abiotic stress in crops is a major issue in the majority of countries, and the causal agents of biotic stress deprive the hosts of their nutrients leading to death of plants. Plants cope with biotic stresses via defense mechanisms that act against such stresses. The resistance genes against these biotic stresses are present in the plant genome and are encoded in hundreds of genes.

In order to survive under such severe conditions, plants show stress tolerance through acclimation and adaptation mechanisms. Understanding these stress responses at the cell, tissue, or whole organism level of food, feed, fiber, vegetables and ornamental crops is becoming very important. Research using genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, lipidomics, proteomics, and incorporating evidence from physiological, biochemical and molecular physiology have contributed to our knowledge of stress responses in crops. Several signaling molecules/agents such as salicylic acid, jasmonic acid, brassinosteroids, nitric oxide, polyamines, etc play key roles in the cross-talk between stress signaling pathways which serve as connecting link between sensing the environmental stresses and creating sustainable physiological and biochemical responses as part of stress tolerance management. The role of plant growth promoting microorganisms and signaling molecules in combating such stresses as well as enhancing nutrient use efficiency is another important aspect of defense mechanisms, which lead to stress tolerance and high yield stability of agricultural crops.

This Special Issue contains articles on crop responses to different abiotic stresses, as well as biotic stimuli during microbial infections/plant pathogen interaction.

Editors

Padmanabh Dwivedi &

Padmanabh Dwivedi

Prof. Padmanabh Dwivedi is the head of the Department of Plant Physiology at Banaras Hindu University, India. He specializes in in vitro propagation of medicinal plants, especially Stevia rebaudiana, using elicitors and signaling agents to enhance production of bioactive compounds. He also studies the effects of these agents on plant stress tolerance and nutrient use efficiency. He has published 134 articles, 56 book chapters and 11 books. He has received many awards and fellowships from India and abroad.
Sudhir K. Sopory

Sudhir K. Sopory

Prof Sudhir K Sopory is Emeritus Senior Scientist at the International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, New Delhi.
His group has been working to understand plant responses to light and stress conditions. His seminal work was to identify role of neglected glyoxalase pathway in stress and developmental physiology and his group showed that modification of expression of glyoxalase I and II as also III genes can confer tolerance to multiple stresses. His recent work has shown role of melatonin as also prion like proteins in stress memory responses. He has edited 13 books and published over 270 scientific papers.