Plant Abiotic Stress Challenges from the Changing Environment

作者：A. Pereira · 发表于：Frontiers in Plant Science · 年份：2016 · DOI：10.3389/fpls.2016.01123 · 被引用次数：257 · 研究领域：Medicine、Biology

The challenges of abiotic stress on plant growth and development are evident among the emerging ecological impacts of climate change (Bellard et al., 2012), and the constraints to crop production exacerbated with the increasing human population competing for environmental resources (Wallace et al., 2003). Climate change is predicted to affect agricultural production the most, primarily at low latitudes populated by developing countries, with adverse effects of increasing carbon dioxide and high temperature, challenging researchers toward devising adaptation strategies (Rosenzweig et al., 2014). These constraints to global food supply and a balanced environment encourage research and development of climate smart crops, resilient to climate change (Wheeler and Von Braun, 2013). The field of plant abiotic stress encompasses all studies on abiotic factors or stressors from the environment that can impose stress on a variety of species (Sulmon et al., 2015). These stressors include extreme levels of light (high and low), radiation (UV-B and UV-A), temperature [high and low (chilling, freezing)], water (drought, flooding, and submergence), chemical factors (heavy metals and pH), salinity due to excessive Na+, deficient or in excess of essential nutrients, gaseous pollutants (ozone, sulfur dioxide), mechanical factors, and other less frequently occurring stressors. Since combinations of these stresses such as heat and drought frequently occur under field conditions, and can cause...